Question

Gretel Ehrlich opens with a reference to the Marlboro Man , a lone and rugged-looking cowboy who represented Marlboro in its cigarette advertising for many years. With this reference and her description of the Wyoming landscape, what effect does she achieve in the first three sentences of her essay?

Answer 1

She shows the contrast between the stereotypical image of the cowboy and what a real cowboy is like.

Step-by-step explanation:

In About Men, writer Gretel Ehrlich writes a short essay about her experiences living in a ranch, and compares what she knows about real cowboys with how cowboys are popularly portrayed. In the media, cowboys are shown as rugged, stern, tough men; but in her experience, cowboys are soft-hearted men who deeply love their family and their animals. In the three first sentences of her essay, she shows this contrast between the stereotypical image of the cowboy and a real cowboy through the contrast between the Marlboro Man and the Wyoming landscape: the Marlboro Man is shown as a typical tough cowboy, while the Wyoming landscape is a place of beauty and solace. She argues that the landscape is more representative of the true character of a cowboy than the Marlboro Man is.