In her passage “Live Free and Starve,” Chitra Divakaruni explainswhy the United States House of Congress should not have passed the bill, which restrainsthe importation of products from manufactories where child labor is used. As aresult, she mentions this bill will adversely impact the lives and sustenanceof children and their families in Developing nations. Divakaruni uses multiplepersuasive appeals by giving a personal anecdote and by using multiple examples,which enables the reader to relate to an emotional experience of how this billwill adversely affect these children. Divakaruniopens her argument by seeming to agree with the bill. She writes, “My liberalfriends applauded the bill,” (428) stating that the bill was a triumphantadvance in the field of human rights.
She describes the wretched conditions thesechildren live in and the horror of forced labor. A distinctive utilization ofpatriotic expression in her introduction invites the reader to connect with herpoint of view. She creates common grounds with her audience regarding liberty,human rights, and freedom. These affable overtones in the first paragraph,however, are displaced by the sarcastic tone of her last sentence, when she tellsthese free children could be “free and happy, like American children,” which predictsher later contrast of children in America versus children in developing nationswho benefit from different economic structure. However, she indicates her disagreementwith the proposed bill.
By using a personal anecdote the authoreffectively expresses her disagreement, which allows the reader to relate tothe situation emotionally. Thus, she uses ethos to further her argument.She gives an example of achild named Nima who was from a tribal village that needed to find work inorder to support his family, so Divakaruni’s mom hired him as a servant. This job had favorable working conditions that allowedNimai to economically support his family. By using this example, Divakaruni not only appeals to thereader emotionally, but she also indicates that the bill is not applicable inall situations and other cultures. First, by the author’s use of ethos, thereader feels empathy towards Nimai and his pursuit to support his family.
The way in which Divakaruniintroduces the anecdote causes the reader to want the child to succeed; thisindirectly leads the reader to support child labor to some extent. Second, thisexample disproves the notion presented by the bill that all child labor is badand should be abolished. It provides an exception to this idea, which thenproves the argument for the bill being wrong and points out a faulty reasoningin the bill. She discloses a personal appeal toward the end of herarticle by giving the reader the brief glimpse into her own experiences withchild labor through her anecdote of the child named Nimai, whom her mother had hired. Some could say that this storywould make Divakaruni partial and culturally willing to accept this form of employment.
However, she has avoided this issue by intermixing frequent concessionsthroughout every argument, keeping her American audience in mind. This briefstory gives the reader a name and a face for one of these child laborers, a well-treatedchild named Nimai who “ate the same food that we children did and was given newclothes,” (249) and was encouraged to “learn to read and write” (249).Divakarunigoes back to yet another concession, discussing the context of American society,and putting child labor into that perspective. “It is easy for us to make thiserror,” (249) Divakaruni says, because Americans and even foreigners may have”wiped from their minds the memory” (249) of desperate conditions. She usesthis forgiving statement to put her readers at ease again. However, she endsthe paragraph by restating her argument that it is still true that thesechildren “prefer bread to freedom” (249).
She again uses imagery to createanother emotional pull, this time in the opposite direction from before, bytelling Americans that these conditions they had forgotten would force a parentto sell his or her child, which is unimaginable in our own society. Throughout her passage, Divakaruni composes an excellentargument by projecting her point of view back and forth with the presentationof both the pros and cons of the bill. She exercises caution by agreeing withher target audience, allowing them to remain their sympathetic emotions whilealso using amiable sarcasm and logical appeals to express the other side of thestory. Divakaruni includes a personal anecdote, putting a face and name to achild who benefitted from employment, and she is able to use the anecdote toshow that, perhaps, allowing child labor is the only way to give these childrenbetter lives in a non-American culture. She ends with a strong, powerful thoughtthat will stick in the reader’s mind: the abolishment of child labor couldleave these children in worse conditions. Overall, Divakaruni has crafted aconvincing argument that is difficult to oppose and has affected the minds ofmany Americans through her writing.