TOW # 24 "Stuck In a Catfight --- One With a Dog" (essay)

In the chick wit column of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Francesca Serritella writes an amusing article about her life with her pets. In order to keep her audience interested, Serritella uses humor and figurative language throughout the article. The use of these rhetorical devices affects the tone of the piece and provides an interesting perspective on life with a cat and a dog.

The simple fact that this article was a piece based on personal experiences with two pets that do not get along would make most readers roll their eyes or yawn out of boredom, but Serritella from the very first sentence uses humor to captivate her audience. “My kids are fighting. They’re not my kids. I should stop personifying them. My cat is being mean to my son. Sorry, my cat is being aggressive with my dog.” The witty start to a dreary topic captivates the reader and changes their attitude towards the subject for the rest of the article. However, not only does this use of humor charm the reader, but it also changes the tone of the piece. Some of us have heard the advice to start a meeting with a joke, because it lightens the mood and makes the act a little less strenuous. Well Serritella does the same thing here, she lightens the mood and makes reading her article enjoyable. In addition to humor, Serritella also uses figurative language throughout the piece. Personification is a prominent rhetorical device, and although normally it is defined as giving human qualities to an inanimate object, the specific attributes Serritella gives to her pets I believe qualify as personification. She refers to her cat having a mid-life crisis, or “menopaws,” due to the uncharacteristically moody behavior she is having. Also, Serritella uses an extended metaphor in her piece when describing how she is using little dime bags of katnip as “cosmic cat grass” to help her unwind. Her use of figurative language coexists with the humorous tone throughout the piece, which is specifically shown when Serritella compares her cat’s tolerance to “drugs” as that of Seth Rogen. This combination of rhetorical strategies provides an interesting point of view to the topic, because we don’t usually relate dogs and cats fighting to drug problems and menopaws. The point of view she provides reminds her audience of similar situations they could be having with non-pets, and by doing so makes a formerly dull topic, extremely interesting.

Overall I believe Serritella achieved her purpose of providing an interesting view on a topic that can be colorless. Through her use of humor and figurative language she expresses her personal experiences that, as a columnist, is her job. In “Stuck in a Catfight – One With a Dog,” Serritella writes an exuberant piece that makes her audience want to read more.