"Exit Mubarak" by Roger Cohen | Published 2/11/11 | An Editorial Analysis

            The author of "Exit Mubarak" uses rhetorical devices to help the reader understand the argument and to help the argument flow. For example, he uses imagery when he writes, "ashen-faced Omar", and "The revolution was...seeping out of a packed Tahrir Square like a dam breaking." This helps paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind of what exactly the author is trying to say. The author also uses syntax for better flow so the reader can be more receptive to his message, such as when he uses interrogatives to question assumptions when he writes, "How far could Mubarak be from the scene as long as Sleiman was guiding the process?" Cohen also uses anaphora and asyndeton when he writes, "long trampled-upon, long subjected to the humiliation," creating a poetic "sound." Finally, the author uses details to build up his voice and help us understand the situation in Egypt from his point of view. Examples of such usage include "The Arab world has awoken from a long conspiracy-filled slumber induced by aging despots determined to keep their peoples from modernity," and "the building blocks we were trying to use were rotten to the core and we had been complicity in that rot."

           There were no weaknesses in the essay that I could perceive.

            In this essay, the narrative persona is very informal and passionate. The author makes a lot of cultural references, such as when he writes, "which wizened specimen from the Arab Jurassic Park is next?" But he is also very passionate about his subject, emphasizing that "there is nothing anti-democratic in the Arab genome." Such imagery, syntax, and details help the author build up his narrative persona. This tone makes me like the essay more because the informal tone makes the essay more interesting to read, and the passionate tone makes the essay more attractive because I know the author cares for the issue, thus I feel like I should care too.

            I think the speaker would still be appropriate if this were an AP essay because the speaker really tries to reach out to the reader, but he does it in a way so as to still sound formal. The only problem is, the author makes a claim and does not support it very well with evidence, thus although the speaker would work for an AP essay, I don't think the essay itself would.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/opinion/12iht-edcohen12.html?ref=rogercohen