TOW #21: Zoos or no Zoos? (MIchelle Carr)

http://www.peta.org/living/entertainment/reality-zoos/

Michelle Carr, an extreme animal-lover, wrote an article about the horrors and misconceptions of zoos. After reading the article, I felt guilty about the times in which I visited the zoo with either a class or with my family. Carr utilizes the emotional appeal and the use of "you and "I" in order to inform her audience that zoos should not be legal, and that they are harmful to animals.

Throughout her article, Carr manages to tap into the emotions of the audience by explaining how the animals are treated and what conditions they are forced to live in while in zoo captivity. She specifically mentions how the animals must be extremely bored, because in some cases, they are only left with an old tire to play with. She also mentions how the animals can become ill or even go mentally unstable because of the small environment they have to live in. For example, a gorilla attempted to escape out of its walls and ended up being shot by the police. As Carr gives these examples, her audience will feel sympathy for the animals and how they are treated in captivity. These emotions will help the audience better understand why zoos should not exist, and Carr will have proven her point.

Also in Carr's article, Carr talks directly to the audience, as if her article is a speech. She also uses first person, particularly at the end of her article, when she offers the audience an alternative to going to zoos. She tells her audience that she no longer goes to the zoo, but instead, encourages her friends and family to boycott the zoo. It was also interesting how she told her audience that watching documentaries about animals or going to see them in their natural habitats is much more interesting and would help the animals so much more than if they went to the zoo to watch them. She claims that at first, she thought zoos were fun and entertaining, but when she got to know the animals "up close", she learned that zoos are chambers for the poor creatures, and that zoos are essentially in violation of the animals' rights.

I thought Carr was very effective in her article because not only did she teach me facts about zoos that I had never thought about or known, but she used these facts to portray her message. Through the use of pronouns and the appeal to emotion, Carr effectively persuaded her audience to stop attending zoos and to think about the animals and what they go through in captivity.