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Rui Hao

Justine Yan

Writing 39B

24 Oct4 Nov 2017

Rhetorical Analysis: The Actual Hollister

Personas Advocate

Located in the heart of California, fifty miles south-east of San Jose, the town of Hollister

evokes curiosity and interest of many, especially by its name. In The Actual Hollister, Dave

Eggers travels to the mysterious town, which became known by the brand Hollister started by

Abercrombie & Fitch, and findfinds it complete but economically depressing. However,

Throughout the essay, Eggers never fail to surprise his attracts the audience and attract them to

his storyto Hollister effectively with his masterful skill in writing strategies. Eggers challenges

the convention of rhetors telling everything about themselves in the start to build credibility

bytour guide persona, and explores deeply after revealing his personal relation with Hollister

partway in the essay,. Histrue identity halfway in the passage, challenging the autobiographical

travel writing convention of building authors credibility in the start.

Regarding travel writings convention of establishing ethos, Paul Fussell, an American

cultural and literary historian, states that the autobiographical narratives credibility depends on

the author constantly referring to actuality. (Abroad, 1980). Later, in Carl Thompsons Travel

Writing, Thompson comments, This emphasis on an autobiographical narrative, and the

authors personal experience of experience of other people or place(Thompson 14). Generally,

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in an autobiography, the authors identity is expectedly undisguised, and the author, more than

likely, would reaffirm his or her work titles, achievements, and personal histories to obtain trusts

from the audience. Later in the passage, Thompson adds, In most travel books, however, it is

evidently assumed that we will find the author, and his or her distinctive sensibility and style, as

interesting as the place they are visiting(Thompson 15). It is safe to say that travel writing as a

genre, expects the author to present his or her interesting identity in order to attract, and

persuade the audience to believethis technique in travel writing accomplishes its goal

effectively. However, Dave Eggers decides to approach his audience in a distinct way. In the

story, Eggerss rhetor position changes from a persona of an outsider, to a descendant who has

aan family history close to Hollister, whichthe town. It surprises the audience, and instead of

losing credibility for hiding who he is, Dave Eggers gains acknowledgment from the audience

through this unique rhetorical technique., and brings the audience closer to the town.

Eggers begins manipulating rhetorical strategies even before the article starts. The

audience starts getting influenced in the essays first exposure. Published on the New Yorker,

though the title of the article is the Actual Hollister, the webpages name, actually, is the

History of Hollister. In fact, when the audience, the New Yorkers readers, click to openon this

piece, they would makebe making a few assumptions already: is this the history of the clothing

brand founded by Abercrombie & Fitch? Is this aan historical or academica documental article?

And whoWhich historian is the person going to tell the story?educate us? Surprisingly, when the

audience skimskims the subtitle, a California town and its name, theythe readers soon realize

that this storys focus is the town insteadin the middle of the brandCalifornia. I would never turn

away from this articlewho would? At this point, the readers are ready and curious to discover

the relationship ofbetween the town and the hoodies that manypeople wear. Dave Eggers, now,
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initiates to buildbuilding his persona in the first sentence, The year I turned forty-three, I woke

up one morning and thought it would be a good day to go to Hollister. This sentence is short,

simple, but exceptionally informative. Eggers clears all the fog; this is not aan ethnography

published by a research team, but a travel story with this middle-aged man to explore and

discover. While Eggers is building an image of a ordinary traveler, he starts to imply the

audience his lack of preparingpreparation and lack of knowledge about Hollister, but in

factreality, he already finished his journey at this point. Uphas been to this point, everything that

Eggers does still applies to the general convention of travel writing; most importantlyHollister.

Now, he buildscreates a persona for himself to guide the audience in his story, and this persona is

creditedtrusted by the audience for being an outsider among, just like all of them.

When he decides to reveal his identity, he writes casually, The rise of the Hollister

brand has been especially strange to me, because it was my great-great-grandfather T. S.

Hawkins who helped found the town of Hollister. This particular sentence not only calls the end

of his outsider persona, but also strengthens his confident claim that he makes against the false

business origin from Abercrombie & Fitch: None of this is true. As a person who has direct

relationship with one of the towns founders, in contrast to the for-profit capitalistic corporation,

Eggerss claim suddenly rise to a undoubtable position along with his credibility in this whole

essay. Like a prince of a lost kingdom, Eggers brings peoples attention to him, unravels the lies

of the romantic advertisement, and is ready to recover the real Hollister. Later in the essay, Dave

Eggers focuses on telling how the town was actually built, and his personal experience with it.

The expectation of Hollister that Eggerss persona has also plays an important role when

he tries to blend inbe the outsider audience to gain theiraudiences trust. Early in the passage,

Eggers mentions, No one was expecting me and I wasnt expecting anything. And later, when
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he arrived in Hollister, he states, It is a strangely complete town. At this moment, his persona

has a low expectation about the town, and is surprised by the fact that it has basic infrastructures.

The low expectation seems plausible at first; nevertheless, it is actually strange that he has an

negative attitudethis town seems to be affiliated with a famous clothing brand! If I were he(his

persona), I would expect it is a economically wealthy town, or at least everyone owns a Hollister

hoodie. Overall, it should be more reasonable to have a higher expectation. I believe that Eggers

is trying to hide himself from the audience by downplaying his opinion on this town. There is a

pattern that we can find: he knows the towns history, while his persona does not; he is related to

this towns founder, while his persona has no clue; finally, he has a higher expectation in this

town because of the relation, and his persona supposedly has a lower one.

certain expectations on this town because of the relationship, and his persona supposedly,

disguises it. His challenge toward the convention is surely riskywhat if the audience does not

like it? However, by lowering the audiences expectation, Eggers successfully gives them

more. The towns relationship with Hollister brand, the towns real history, and most

importantly, his true identity are all part of the surprise. Another reason that Eggers is willing to

take the risk is that he has a special background. Dave Eggerss enthusiasm for this town is richer

than how much he presents to us in the Actual Hollister. According to the Telegraph, a national

daily broadsheet newspaper in the United Kingdom, Eggerss youth was not easy:

For all his affability, Eggers, you suspect, has a pretty dark side which will hardly come

as a surprise to anyone who has read his first book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering

Genius. In the book, Eggers described how, aged 21, he brought up his eight-year-old

brother Christopher Toph. This was after their parents both died of cancer within

weeks of one another One of the reasons Eggers feels so ambivalent about A
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Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is because of what subsequently happened to

his sister, Beth. When the book was published, she accused him of downplaying her role

in their brothers upbringing and beefing up his own. She later recanted saying shed

made a dreadful mistake Im so embarrassed. I was having a terrible LaToya Jackson

moment. Then, in November 2001, Beth Eggers committed suicide (John Preston).

A man lost his parents at my age, and his sister laterI cannot even attempt to relate because of

the fear I feel by just thinking about it. However, what I can imagine is that afterEggers lost his

parents at 20, and his sister later committed suicide. After all the difficulties that he went

through, he must treasure everything that he has, and everything his family member has. I

believe, he wants to find something about T.S. Hawkins in Hollister; he wants to find anything

that he can collect, and he wants to find the bond he has with this town in Hollister Valley. He

has a expectation, or a wish, for this ordinary but unique town.

He is unsatisfied. His ancestor, T.S. Hawkins was one of the founders of the town, but besides

the hospital that might touch his feelings, the rest of the town, as he described, is slightly

disappointing.

When the history of the town and his identity revealed, his personas job, which is to

guide the audience, is finished, and now he would not worry about the suspicion of writing a

travel propaganda for profit (although knowing his background, I believe he would not). He

never attempted to glorify Hollister into a charismatic wonderland, and when he starts his

conversation with Debbie Taylor, he finds out that the town would soon have a Walgreens, and

everyone was excited about that. In the barbers words, It sucks.

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(Q: How's the family? I don't want to pry too much, but we did come to know

your family with your first book, so it's natural to wonder how everyone's doing. Did you

finally get a dog? Melati Kaye

A: People have been really good to us. I think generally as humans we understand

or assume that the world is full of generous and huge-hearted people, but you don't really

know it first-hand until you get letters from strangers who are truly concerned about the

welfare of your family. It just knocks you over, how kind people are. A lot of people

share their own family stories with me, and man, some of these letters well, every story

is sadder than the last. There were a lot of times over the last couple years when these

letters, from people I might never meet, really gave us strength. A lot of people, total

strangers, wrote extremely kind notes after my sister died last year, and that meant a lot to

us. It was such a hard year. There are times when my brothers and I just look around and

can't believe there's only three of us left. You really can't do the math, or you'd lose your

mind. But we're doing well. Bill's in D.C. writing and consulting, and Toph will be a

sophomore in college this fall, and we're happy to be back in California. No dog yet,

though. )Possible secondary source.

(more about Dave Egger)

As a person who has a close relationship with this town, a duller writer would not have

accomplished what Eggers did so easily. If the author did not use a persona to introduce the

town, the audiences first assumption of this essay would have been dramatically different: is this

a advertisement written by the great grandson of this towns founder? Is he paid for writing this
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essay? Without a rhetor position as an outsider, it is likely that the audience of the New Yorker

would soon lose their interest and patience in his work. Nonetheless, Eggers avoids the dilemma

of being doubted by covering up who he truly is, because when he uncovers it, the audience has

already been hooked into this storywas the author lying to me at the beginning? Forget it, let

me finish the story first!

Dave Eggerss main purpose is to tell the true history of Hollister and clarify its

relationship with the brand Hollister, while demonstrating his personal observations of the

town today. Also, inOn the other hand, he made the trip to look for, and memorialize T.S.

Hawkins and his town. Just like what Pico Iyer states in Why we Travel, We travel, initially, to

lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves(Iyer 1). HeBoth as travelers, I think they

have something in common. Eggers does not tell the audience what he has gone through and

what his purpose is, but silently, guides them to go on the journey and see the California town:

Though it might not be good enough for a Hollister clothing outlet, this is the real Hollister, a

place where people work hard and sometimes struggle with their past and their present but look

with great practicality toward the future(Dave Eggers, The Actual Hollister).
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Regardless of the rhetors background and hidden purpose, he establishes and maintains

credibility though his rhetor position changes, while successfully leading the audience to

Hollister. Two identities, the outsider and the descendant, separately serve their duties, while

cooperatively inform the audience from eachs own approach.

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Work Cited(unfinished)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/6865365/Dave-Eggers-interview-the-heartbreak-

kid.html

http://picoiyerjourneys.com/index.php/2000/03/why-we-travel/

https://web.archive.org/web/20070211133148/http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/interview/reade

rs_de.html

Eggers, Dave. The Actual Hollister. The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 19 June 2017,

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-actual-hollister.

Preston, John. Dave Eggers Interview: the Heartbreak Kid. The Telegraph, Telegraph Media

Group, 29 Dec. 2009, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/6865365/Dave-Eggers

interview-the-heartbreak-kid.html.

Iyer, Pico. Why We Travel. Pico Iyer Journeys , Picoiyerjourneys, 18 Mar. 2000,

picoiyerjourneys.com/index.php/2000/03/why-we-travel/.

Thompson, Carl. Chapter Two: Defining the Genre. Travel Writing, Routledge, 2011, pp. 14

15.
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Fussell, Paul. Abroad. Oxford Univ. Pr., 1980.