Rhetorical Strategies

•  “He married two of them...”(30). Metaphor, humor
• Parallelism, extended metaphor, anecdote
• “ Because a few weeks after we came back from Europe my mother sent me to Mars”(52)
• “Devils Food” (72). (Chapter Name) double meaning, , meataphor

Parallelism is one of the many tools Reichl uses to convey the tone of Tender at the Bone. One of the best examples is of the questions that Reichl asked as a child that received no answers. When regarding Hortense, her daughter, Aunt Birdie refuses to answer Reichl’s question as to her whereabouts or life. Reichl writes, “...but each time I said the word “Hortense” she pretended not to hear me. Everybody did”(21). This insistance on keeping Reichl in the dark in order to protect her innocence as well as the fact that it is a touchy subject for Aunt Birdie is again exemplified by Mrs Peavey, Alice, and  Beatrice. Mrs. Peavey leaves for long periods of time and tends to be very secretive. When Reichl asks, “Where were you?”(47). she continues cooking as if nothing had happened. She uses food as a way to mask her emotions and be uncommunicative. Beatrice, even though she is Reichl’s age, continues the trend of silence. When Beatrice displays her cooking knowledge, Reichl is inquisitive and asks, “How did you know that?”(70). Like all the others, Beatrice continues with her cooking and ignores Reichl’s queries. The purpose of doing this is to further the theme of Tender at the Bone. Food is critical to the story of Ruth Reichl. It has shaped her personality, family, friends, career, and personal relationships. Reichl uses parallelism to show to the reader the extent that food played in her life; it had the same effect on people she knew. And because it had this effect on them, it likewise affected her.