Essay 1: Term 3 : Argument analysis

Halloween – treat or trick? A personal journey

Type: Opinion piece.

Nadia Laghari of Redfern’s opinion piece on why Australia celebrates

Halloween to the extent that it does. Throughout her piece Laghari details her
journey of her emotions towards the celebration and has come to some
outcomes that she has realised such as the memories, and the culture that the
event brings in its own unique ways. The use of her understanding, and gentle
tone towards the topic is used to express her ideas Halloween and her
eventual realisation and communicating to the readers that her stance is
rational and coming from a logical perspective.
Laghari starts her piece by stating her grievances traditions and hinderances
that Halloween brings, and how culturally irrelevant Halloween is in Australian
culture. Laghari in this paragraph intendeds to introduce and make the
audience understand through her perspective through the use of anecdotal
evidence and personal language as she paints this picture to convince her
target audience of what Halloween night entails for a mother. Her description
of a Halloween night is one of horror and has the audience to sympathise with
the misery that the sugar and festivities come with the activity. This is then
accompanied by the image which is layout out in an overly abundant amount
which is signalling to the audience, how Halloween is an unaustralian event,
how the festivities that come with it are unhealthy and how it ruins a typically
normal routine for families and Australian nights. In this opening paragraph,
she describes Halloween as this event that breaks families and the normality of
a night is destroyed because of it.

Second paragraph, she begins to elaborate and expand upon her idea of what
and why Halloween is detrimental and unaustralian in the culture of this
American past time and how it cuts in to a grey space of originality. This
cultural phenonomen that laghari is commentating on is how widespread it is
globally. In this segment laghari came to a realisation when she experienced it
herself with her nephews and seeing how this event impacts other people in
her life. This is put in here to have the audience understand and see her
perspective in a more personal level as she isn’t dismissive of the topic as a
way for her to convince and persuade them about the topic. The use of
personal language and having relatable activities would make the audience see
Laghari more relatable and see her that her point is valid and not disregarding
the other side of her opinion of how Halloween. With the use of relatable
language, Laghari convinces the audience of her changing stances on
Halloween and how she shifts the perspective to fit her arguments and her
narrative of how a Halloween in Australia plays out.