Emotional Appeal in McCarthys On Immortality Article

Emotional Appeal in McCarthys On Immortality - Article Example The paper analyses ‘On Immortality’. McCarthy extensively uses figurative language as an emotional appeal to present immortality as an immature and unwise idea. The author uses the metaphorical comparison, terming it as a highway of immortality, to show the carefree life that immortality would be. With the wideness and the smoothness associated with a highway, the author suggests that immortality does not have checks. Indeed, McCarthy further uses figurative language in arguing that this kind of life does not have a weigh station of wisdom. It therefore portrays the lack of wisdom associated with immortality where humans lack the maturity to handle the challenges that come with it. This has been used to further solidify the author’s stand against immortality. This comes out vividly when McCarthy talks of the possibility of a rise of unstoppable mortal species that would eliminate the immortal beings due to natural selection. The author thus persuades the reader of longevity as being more favored by nature than immortality which is not well thought about. Similes in the essay have been used to discredit immortality as a form of lifestyle that would objectify human life. McCarthy (546) compares immortality to a car, where in order to keep it going, then, there would be the need to keep replacing its parts. This intends to make the reader appreciate that immortality would turn humans into objects. It would make their operations resemble that of objects such that in order to keep them going, then worn out parts of their bodies would be replaced with new ones, just as worn out parts of a car get replaced to enable them keep moving. This, therefore, means that immortality would make humans lose their humanness, an aspect which they treasure, and adopt a new objectified life. It is this loss that the author uses to portray the unattractiveness of immortality. The author’s use of irony enables her convince the reader of the advantage that com es with mortality. It is ironical that humans admire long life more than they seek for â€Å"long healthy life† while they â€Å"want to be 100 years old and dewy fresh† (McCarthy 547). Since aging is inevitable, McCarthy indicates that the immortal life would be a source of pain to humans, who only seek to live without considering the quality of life. Human longevity, on the other hand, considers the duration and quality of life, appreciating the need for human health. After execution of the required assignment, which McCarthy (547) notes is to bring forth the future, they then pave way for the fresher generation, thus creating room for the new generation, space being an important component of quality life. This way, the quality of li