Non-traditional rhetorical analysis of "Red Shoes"

Dear Susan Griffin,

I just finished reading your “Red Shoes” essay and might I just say I have never read an essay like that before. It was truly wonderful. It was almost as if I was reading two essays at once, but yet they were completely connected, this was very ingenious of you!

I felt as though you essay consisted of both private and public parts. The parts in Roman type seemed to be the public parts of the essay that would be the sort of things that a writer would not be shy about sharing with others. I really enjoyed the way you would always have the public parts and the private parts, that were in the italics, connected. It was confusing what exactly you were doing in this essay at first, but in the end it all came together and made perfect sense.

I like the way you used color in this essay. The red in the essay represented different things for the different people of this essay, for you as a little girl you liked red because it was your mother’s favorite color and it seemed as though your grandmother did not like it. As a child red meant different things to you, such violence, whereas for the woman smelling roses in the park it seemed to be a happy color for her. I think the black robe in you story represents the way your grandmother tried to cover up her wrong doings to you. The peach I believe is supposed to represent calm in the story because it is the color of the sheets and in bed is where most people seem to be the calmest.

I really enjoyed your essay; it was beautifully laid out and had such a fresh format which allowed you to intertwine public and private. I appreciate it that you took the time to read this letter and I hope to read something else of yours very soon.

Sincerely,
Melissa Mooney