Argument Analysis 4- "Crack and the Box"

Of all the valid arguments, finally someone is posing the question why? Pete Hamill intellectually illustrates the relationship between the television and why Americans do drugs. We know drugs are harmful, we know that people still do them but has anyone stopped to figure out why? Hamill begins with yet another story about a broken family that has been destroyed by drug addiction. He mentions that this story has been told over and over and yet it still has the same outcome. The drug addiction is a vicious cycle that not only affects the addicted but those around the addicted.

Hamill immediately begins tugging at the heartstrings of the readers. Within the first paragraph he has already sucked you in so completely by gripping opening lines such as- "One sad rainy morning last winter, I talked to a woman who was addicted to crack cocaine" (Hamill). In the first sentence Hamill as already launched a full force of pathos to lock the reader into finding out more. After a short description of the sad lonely addicts that he encounters, the direction of the argument is stated bluntly in the third paragraph- "Why?"

Hamill uses a rhetorical question to further involve the reader. This allows the reader to begin to think of their own response as Hamill's response begins to unfold while they divulge deeper into the essay. He has opened up the ability for imagination while maintaining his view of the issue. After posing the question "why" he gives a series of short explanations that lead up to his thesis which is that television is the reason we have so many drug addicts.

The use of style and voice are essential in this essay as it helps Hamill's emotion leap off the page. He makes it an everyday conversation by not using ridiculous vocabulary- he is simply talking. This could easily have taken place between two people and therefore it makes it readable and easy to understand. He alludes to personal past experiences about the history of TV and how it affected his life. Also we get a sense of anger by his disgust for the government and how they have handled drug addictions now and in the past. He uses sarcasm and curtly states his opinion with the occasional slur or common names for objects that readers can connect with.

Overall he effectively argues why TV has corrupted our society and promotes addictions to hard drugs. Hamill uses extreme emotion to grip the reader with a necessary amount of statistics, history, and data to further better his already blunt argument.