TOW #8: Bossypants (IRB)

Tina Fey, an American comedian who has been in a few television series such as 30 rock and Saturday Night Live, as well as many other notable movies writes an autobiography titled Bossypants. In this book, she provides her life story and the ups and downs throughout her career. The audience is anyone who has interest in this comedian, the context being written like a memoir. Fey cleverly uses sarcasm and allusions to engage the audience and to achieve her purpose recounting humorous experiences in her life.
         In Fey's writing, not only does she make it humorous, she uses imagery along with it. While writing about growing up, she reveals to the audience, "my dark shin fur was hard to ignore in shorts weather, especially since my best friend Maureen was a pale Irish lass who probably doesn’t have any leg hair to his day". During this part, she was explaining her experience before she shaved her legs. She paints a great picture of why she needs to shave her legs at the age of ten, and along with that we can see the humor associated with her experience.
       Another effective rhetorical device used is an allusion. Allusion helps achieve her purpose because it allows the audience to connect to things that she says. Fey mentions that, "of course I know now that no one can ‘steal’ boyfriends against their will, not even Angelina Jolie itself.” She does an informal references to a famous person, which makes her writing funny and more relatable because most people know who Angelina Jolie is because she's big in pop culture.
           I believe that Tina Fey does a good job with retelling important highlights of her life and engaging her audience because she uses vivid imagery, allowing the audience to be able to picture what is happening. She makes the entire autobiography funny which keeps the interest of readers.