William F. Buckley, JR. “Why Don’t we complain” first appeared in Esquire in 1961.
In this essay Buckley aims to convince his readers that America is too lazy to even mention their own predicaments. He then goes on to explain Americans passive acceptance of circumstances. In doing this he uses several anecdotes based on his past, using careful diction and to keep his audience engaged he sprinkles in rhetorical questions. Buckley opens his essay with a personal anecdote describing the acceptance of “whatsoever” he realizes that outside it was below freezing temperature and in the train it was 85 degrees. Buckley explains how the train conductor went back and forth through the aisle and not a single person moaned. There were ample amounts …show more content…

He then uses allusion he says “we will sit in an oven or endure a racking headache before undertaking a head-on”. Buckley gives us a call to action and says “I’m here to tell you to complaint”. After using two anecdotes he goes on to use another that happened on New Years Eve. He had been standing in a ski repair store for Forty-eight hours and he needed a screwdriver to tighten a loose binding. Behind the counter were two men one of them was industrious, sereious, and does his job, the second one was huffing a pipe (smoking) and was lazy he was doing nothing. He gives a quick compare and contrast of the two men to create a vivid picture across the readers head. Buckley basically goes up to the man who is doing nothing and asks for a screwdriver, the man says he has just had a heart attack. He uses a hyperbole to show that he was embarrassed, he says “That was the signal for a great whirring noise that descended from heaven”
“We looked, stricken, out the window, and it appeared as though a cyclone had suddenly focused on the snowy courtyard between the shop and the ski lift. Suddenly a gigantic army helicopter materialized, and hovered down to a landing. Two men jumped out of the plane carrying a stretcher tore into the ski shop, and lifted the shopkeeper onto the stretcher. Jiggs bade his companion goodbye, was whisked out the door, into the plane, up