Funny In Farsi Rhetorical Analysis

Moving is rarely easy for anyone, but immigrating to a new country, one of which that person is unfamiliar with the common language, is often much harder. In Iranian immigrant Firoozeh Dumas’ memoir, Funny in Farsi, she allows us to see and understand her first perception of America. In her puerile yet humorous documentation of her first experience in the United States, Dumas brings her personal story to life by establishing a sardonic tone, and using varied diction and syntax throughout. In Funny in Farsi, Dumas varies her diction depending on whether she wants to come across as informative and serious, or maintain the sardonicism that is prevalent throughout. The best example of the sardonicism in the text is when, after explaining how her …show more content…
For example, when the author intends a sentence or paragraph to come across as humorous, she makes her sentences short and abrupt. At the same time, she increases her vocabulary to include words that are unusual or relatively uncommon, such as perhaps, predicament, grossly, and pondering. On the other hand, when Dumas’ intends her writing to be taken seriously, or at least when the subject at hand is meant to be only somewhat funny, her sentences lengthen and her vocabulary becomes somewhat simpler. For example, the language used when the author states, “Before her marriage, my mother, Nazireh, had dreamed of becoming a midwife…My mother planned to obtain her diploma, then go to Tabriz to learn midwifery from a teacher whom my grandfather knew. Sadly, the teacher died unexpectedly, and my mother’s dreams had to be buried as well.” (Page 12, paragraph 7, lines 4 through 9), is simpler than when she says, “As we stood pondering our predicament, an enthusiastic young girl came...and said something.” The author’s word choice and phrasing patterns make it easier to conclude whether or not she is trying to be funny, or is trying to educate us in a more formal, black-and-white …show more content…
Firoozeh Dumas tends to use many compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences in her work, as well as the odd simple sentence from time to time. An example of one of the compound-complex sentences in her work is when she states, “Until my first day at Leffingwell Elementary School, I had never thought of my mother as an embarrassment, but the sight of all the kids in the school staring at us before the bell rang was enough to make me pretend I didn’t know her.” This sentence, although long, allows the story to feel as though it is flowing