English

ERIC ED150581: Tom Wolfe and the Uses of Argument.

Tom Wolfe is widely regarded as the leading theorist and practitioner of New Journalism, the journalistic genre that combines the stylistic features of fiction and the reportorial obligations of journalism to produce a "novelistic sounding" but nonetheless factual literature. The saliency of Wolfe's stylistic boldness has prompted many to conclude that the absorbing, convincing quality of Wolfe's work is owed primarily to his unique and innovative stylistic techniques. But Wolfe is more than just a clever stylist; his essays reveal a carefully crafted argument through which he constructs an appealing rhetorical reality wherein there are simple, absolute, almost hilariously obvious explanations for everything. The rhetorical vision is architecturally achieved by Wolfe's reliance on (1) analogy and metaphor, (2) single causality, and (3) hyperbolic "put-on." (The major portions of the paper analyzes Wolfe's usage of these three devices in terms of its persuasive impact, philosophical dimensions, and journalistic implications.) (Author/GW)

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