Summary Of Mirror: The Uses And Abuses Of Self Love

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Self-love is an up and coming problem in our society that can date back to being described in Greek Mythology tales. Chapter 2 of the book “Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self-Love” is written by Simon Blackburn to an audience of educated readers in their adulthood to apply lessons from Greek mythology to modern society, and suggest ways to downsize the effects of self love. Princeton University Press recently published this book in 2014. Blackburn effectively educates his audience of self love by identifying with his audience, and the appropriate use of ethos,and logos. Like any author, Blackburn has constraints he has to deal with throughout the chapter. He does a great job at conveying the tale told by Ovid, and explaining what…show more content…
He has situated ethos because of his credentials; he is a retired professor of Philosophy at The University Of Cambridge, but still remains a research professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Blackburn also shows invented ethos, he doesn’t put the tale word for word in this chapter. Instead he explains the story and includes excerpts of the tale using the words of Ovid. This helps his audience believe what he is saying, and trust him. It also helps the reader feel like they are making the connections to the myths and to todays society, this way the reader feels the author is reliable if they are both coming the same conclusion. The author also creates credibility with the audience in some of his language choices. He says “She had previously suffered the misfortune of annoying the goddess Juno with her chatter, so (perhaps like many of today’s Twitterati) she had been condemned only ever to repeat the last thing said to her.” (36) This makes him credible because he is using a word, twitter, to grasp the audience's attention in case they were getting bored of the myth. This makes the audience believe what the author is trying to say because he is also familiar with what society is like…show more content…
The author compares the story of Narcissus to the contemporary story of the “Bling Ring”. This is a story about teenagers in California who would go through celebrities’ trash and break into their homes. Then they would post their findings on several social media sites. This helps him identify with his audience by sharing a story the audience may have heard of before, or are familiar with. This way the reader engages with the author on a similar level. The reader feels as if they and the author are equals and that what he has to say is legitimate. He also expresses how we may find many people like Narcissus all around us in places such as: “art galleries, concerts, public spaces, and cyberspace” (38) He mentions how we are so infatuated with ourselves that we could be standing in front of the Mona Lisa or the Taj Mahal and the importance would be on the person standing in front of it, and not the significance of the object. Another way Blackburn identifies with his audience is when he says: “Any of us might die after a life spent chasing phantoms, objects that we cannot possess, and that, if we could but possess them, would turn out to have been nothing but ripples in our minds, illusions, and dreams.” (39) Through his use of “Any of us” Blackburn

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