When presenting the topic of an essay, a writer wants to cover a wide range of interests so as to obtain the largest possible audience. In "Where Have All The Heroes Gone," Mosher has a very specific agenda for his claim and support. That agenda was to use sports as his main choice for supporting examples. He did touch base on a couple of others, but it was obviously sports as his main tool. The beauty of the piece was that every time he mentioned a sports icon, they were merely a prop for his upcoming example to trigger the reader's emotion. So, by placing his focus on emotion, he most likely tripled the number of readers that would finish the entire essay without stopping after the third paragraph because they were not interested in sports. In fact, I would bet that most of his audience would not even be avid sports fans.



The audience is imperative to the success of this piece. Reason being, it is worded with fact specific details existent only to create a moralist environment without stating so directly to the reader. Better yet, the claim is somewhat loose throughout the essay, so that the final analysis can be tailored to each readers individual set of morals.

Take a moment to think about the news. You can watch the war in Israel, or a bomb being disarmed in San Francisco. Headline; "Three police officers indicted on rape charges". These are the top three on CNN.com right now. It appeals to the audience because of the intense drama. "At least I'm a better person than they are". This essay allows the reader to be in a position that is somewhat condescending in his or her view of a sports "Hero". We like to hear about how bad a hero might be so we can feel better about ourselves. The appeal that this type of writing has to our value system is tremendous. We all have great values. Don't we? Or, do we like to sit back and see the mistakes that others make and place judgment, while we seem to grade our own actions in life on a curve. If we can read an essay like "Where Have All The Heroes Gone", and feel better after doing so, in the big picture, we benefit from doing so.

The audience should have a broadened perspective, and realization, of humanity after reading this essay. We are all capable of foul deeds given the opportunity, regardless of our status in the eye of society. Thanks to the curve, the audience will also end up with a warmer feeling about themselves.