Babies Are Not Always a Good Thing Throughout human history, people have always awaited and celebrated the birth of people, so much so that they have dedicated an entire branch of medicine that deals with it. While a hospital nurse usually deals with death and illness every day, obstetrics and maternity nurses can help bring new life every day, multiple times a day. Even though most people would love to work as a maternity nurse and would be happy and excited to work with these miracles, sooner or later it starts to become just a job, where the joy fades away, as in the case of Annie Dillard. essay in which he describes the routine that nurses perform every day. In the piece he uses rhetorical devices to demonstrate a critical and cold attitude towards the nurses' treatment of children. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay When Dillard describes the first scene in her essay, she uses a lot of imagery. From the first to third paragraphs, he describes the baby wash station as you would expect a factory line to look and sound like. He says they wash newborns like dishes, with nurses changing during eight-hour shifts. This is one of the moments where the author uses images to set the tone of the essay. When Dillard paints a picture of a factory line as a baby washing station, the reader can begin to see that the tone of this essay is not positive; children are treated like objects. With this example of imagery, it is clear that the tone is cold and critical. Another example of imagery that supports the tone can be found on the second page. Lines 35-37 say that the nurse wraps him up and simply sends him down the line, as one would on an assembly line. With these image examples, it is clear to the reader that the tone is cold and critical because normally, in the presence of a child, a person would be happy and excited, here, the nurses are bored and don't even care about him. more, they refer to them as objects, not even worthy of a name. Aside from imagery, Dillard also uses analogies to demonstrate his tone. One of the first examples of analogies is found on the first page of the essay. On the first page, the nurse describes the baby's head using an analogy, she compares his head to a donkey's cone/cap head. Not only is it an analogy, but it is also satire because it is mean and judgmental, the nurse is making a mean comparison with the purpose of mocking him. This mean and judgmental analogy really shows that the nurses don't really care about the children at this point, and shows that the tone of this essay is cold and critical. Another example of using analogies to set the tone is also found on the first page. In the sixth paragraph, the narrator compares a clot to the baby. Compare the creation myth of the Quran, where Allah created life with a blood clot, to a newborn baby! An object that can disappear/dissolve with TPA (a medicine/solution that can dissolve blood clots non-invasively) is compared to a child, which can only disappear with the use of another human being, the which is equivalent to murder. This analogy shows that at this point the nurses really consider the children as objects, which shows that the tone of this essay is cold and critical. Please note: this is just an example. Get a customized document from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay In summary, Annie Dillard's tone and attitude in her essay are cold and critical. To set the tone, use two..