Anaylisis Of Jennings

            
             Marianne Jennings" essay "The Real Generation Gap" tries to make the argument that differences between Generation X and the previous ones is widening and slumping in a downward direction. She urges parents to fight out against this downward slope but never can truly sway opinion because of her poor logos. She bases much of her arguments upon her personal experience as a mother, her own personal opinion, assumption, and the assertion that Christians (mainly Catholics) have the correct formula for living a moral life. Contradictions of her points and her harsh tone at times take away from her ethos. She does do an adequate job with her pathos when appealing to people's basic moral values and the simple organization of the five topics: "skills, knowledge, critical thinking, work, and morality" is also helpful (298). .
             Contradiction is a problem that takes place early on in the first two paragraphs. She asserts that the members of Generation X "know nothing at all about John Wayne, [and] Babe Ruth" who she thinks would be proper role models. In the very next sentence she says, "[the members of Generation X's] favorite role models are the type of celebrities seen on MTV, ESPN, and the cover of People". The contradiction happens here because we realize that ESPN is a sports magazine which has featured Babe Ruth many times and that People is a movie magazine and that John Wayne was a movie star. Not only does this contradiction hurt her logos but it also harms her ethos. Since she states that these two men are proper role models, then we can assume that they are also her role models, but neither of the two are viewed as pure and entirely good; it is quite the opposite. Babe Ruth was known to cheat on his wife and it ended their marriage, yet in the first paragraph she speaks bad about how Generation X is full of "broken homes". John Wayne is also considered one of the worst actors by people currently in the field because he never has changed his character for any of his movies.