Rhetorical Analysis of "Where Sweatshops are a Dream"

Rhetorical Situation

          "Where Sweatshops are a Dream" is an essay written by Nicholas D. Kristof with the purpose of enlightening people across the nation that sweatshops are an essential to any developing country. Kristof's background helps support his argument with his many years of experience of living in Asia, mentioned in his article. 

This article was directly applied to an audience that has narrow view of that sweatshops equal unfair pay and unfair treatment, but Kristof's article helps explains to his audience that sweatshops are an extremely safe and productive job to families in developing countries. The writer attempts to persuade the audience to encourage more sweatshops to be built in 3rd world countries. Kristof uses a balance amount of pathos and ethos by adding stories of injured children and the improvements of countries' economy with the installation of sweatshops.

Kristof wrote this article to help inform people, that believe that sweatshops are only a negative attribute in developing countries, to realize that sweatshops has many beneficial benefits. The writer knew that many individuals believe that sweatshops should be banned or stopped, but still wrote this article to attempt and change these people's minds.

The context of the article would be that many people presume that many sweatshops is a sign of a stigma because of many companies create cheap sweatshops and hire cheap workers to increase their profits.

Logos: In the article "Where Sweatshops are a Dream", Kristof demonstrates his logic of the current situation by explaining that many citizens of these developing countries are struggling of obtaining jobs to provide for themselves and/or families. Many arguments against sweatshops are that labor standards can improve wages and working condition, but it only has a larger impact on productions costs that companies are trying to pare. The better method of setting up sweatshops is to operate nations that has capital-intensive factories. 

Pathos: Throughout the article, Kristof presents many stories of children scavenging in filth to help provide for their families are often killed or gravely injured. Kristof uses these events to create sympathy for his cause; many of these children rather be working in factories because it provides a safe environment for children to work in.  

Ethos: The author displays his credibility by briefly mentioning that he has lived in Asia for a few years to witness several of the hardships of the citizens to obtain jobs. By acknowledging the readers of his firsthand experience with local families searching for jobs, it helps establish Kristof's credibility. 

Rhetorical Strategies: Kristof organized his article by introducing an image of Dante-like hell with mountains of garbage with children searching for old plastic items to sell to recyclers, and transitions into stating that many families live in this trash area. Then Kristof gives the audience a surprise that increasing sweatshops can help reduce this type of lifestyle. The article then presents quotes from people who live these areas that explains that working in sweatshops is a dream of their because it would bring in a steady source of income for their family.

After sharing quotes of the families that are living there, Kristof continues that children often scavenge for anything recyclable, but these children have a risk for being killed or injured. This aids Kristof views of sweatshops and allows the readers to be more aware of the dangerous condition of not having a job in a factory. 

Kristof then transitions into countering labor standards about how they only are helpful for a few countries, but having sweatshops be created in more capital-intensive countries will help those countries tremendously. He then ends his article of a little girl wearing scandalous brand shirt covered in filth searching for trash with her little sister with a missing hand when she was hit by a truck. 

        "Where Sweatshops are a Dream" demonstrates the dangers of not working in a sweatshop, but also sweatshops can help a country's economy because it will be providing more jobs. Kristof presents many facts and emotional stories of children, which are very well constructed to persuade many readers to consider sweatshops differently. But one flaw of the article was that it lacked credibility because Kristof mentions only once that he was in Asia for years, but all these facts could be theorized by him and many of his stories seem very generic, and all the same: the stories had variety in them, but overall the article was well structure and very persuasive.