How does the author use rhetoric to advance his point of view of the loon

The satirical tone of T. Coraghessan Boyle's short story "Top of the Food Chain" gives the story an over-the-top feeling of hilarious allegory rather than of a tale based on real events. Dark humor aside, Boyle's story somewhat parallels the events of actual malaria-extermination programs initiated by the World Health Organization in Borneo and other countries during the 1950s and 1960s. His tone implies that cures sometimes are more dangerous than the problems they treat.

Boyle's Story and Voice

A nameless chemical company representative reports to a Senate hearing about a failed project that was intended to wipe out malaria in Borneo. The author combines first-person voice -- primarily speaking as "we," but also using the pronouns "I" and "me" -- along with second-person voice by repeatedly talking to an individual senator and others as "you." This is part of the author's tone and makes readers feel like they are there. As the author heaps one chemical-company mistake on top of another, the story takes on an iterative quality similar to "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly." The company representative's attitude is flippant as he describes how use of the insecticide DDT to kill mosquitos led to a series of errors in which each subsequent mistake magnified the previous one. The mosquitos died, but so did the wasps that were keeping caterpillars from eating the thatched roofs of islanders' homes. Both roofs and the island's ecosytem began to collapse.

Satirical Tone

Tone is the author's attitude toward a subject, but the author's viewpoint isn't necessarily shared by a story's narrator. Boyle's dark wit and irony make it clear that the malaria project was a fiasco, while the narrator spins his company's errors as being unavoidable accidents ending in a positive result -- development of a foreign aid program for Borneo. "To every cloud a silver lining," he quips.

Boyle's humor is relentless and sharpens as the story proceeds. It begins on a glib note with the narrator comparing his company's attempt to kill mosquitos using "safer stuff" as being no better than "spraying with Chanel No. 5." By the end, the narrator recounts airlifting cats to the island to replace ones that ate poisoned geckos, died and weren't available to combat rat overpopulation. Unfortunately, the narrator says, so many species died that crops failed and the islanders ate the new cats.

Satire As Political Tool

Satire often highlights folly and is used as a tool for communicating political criticism. Its humor attacks a target or situation of which the author disapproves. Satirical writing aims at persuading readers to the author's viewpoint, as well as entertaining them. In a 1994 review of Boyle's book "Without a Hero Stories," which contains "Top of the Food Chain," The Baltimore Sun noted Boyles "penchant for absurdity" and the way in which the author makes the narrator "bluster" comically about his company's "responsibility for lost species."

Actual DDT Malaria Programs

DDT is still used to fend off malaria in the tropics, because it is inexpensive and generally effective against mosquitoes. Boyle's story likely is based on a number of WHO anti-malarial campaigns in Bolivia, Malaysia and Thailand that involved spraying homes with DDT. In both cases, rodent overpopulation occurred because the DDT also killed cats. Unlike the cats in Boyle's story, the real ones died from brushing up against the walls of treated homes and then licking the chemical off their fur.

Explanation:

option 3

explanation:

1. an introductory word, phrase, or clause which is missing the word(s) it is supposed to modify- dangling modifier

words, clauses or phrases which add description is known as a modifier. a modifier is found before or after the target words that they want to describe.

for example: happily, she ran towards her father.

herein, happily precedes 'she', its target.

whereas, when an author forgets to mention the target and includes the modifier thus it is known as a dangling modifier, wherein modifier has nothing to describe. these are the errors which confuse the reader.

2. a noun or pronoun's function within a sentence- elliptical clause

it is a clause in which words are being left out. on the other hand, the missing word is understood due to the logic or pattern of the sentence.

for example:

she had five apples;   kanishk, three.

herein the verb 'had' is missing which is otherwise understood.

3. to quickly run: split infinitive

it refers to the construction of the sentence in which infinitive consists with the word or an adverb between to and verb.

for example, he used to secretly ate those apples.

4. a clause with either an implied subject or verb: elliptical clause

5. a word that joins words or phrases of the same grammatical type: coordinating conjunctions are the words which connect clauses and phrases. there are seven coordinating conjunctions that are, yet, so, or, for, and, nor, and but.

for example:

the boy refused to complete the homework nor will he take the punishment.

'and' is the coordinating conjunction.

7. pronoun with no specific antecedent: indefinite pronouns are the pronouns which do not refer to anyone specifically.

for example several, nobody, some and so forth.

8. a pair of words like either/or: correlative conjunctions

these are the pairs of conjunctions used in a sentence to join elements together. these are, , not also, and so forth.

9. masculine and feminine forms: gender

gender refers to the cultural, psychological and behavioral traits that are associated with a particular sex.