Roger Ebert: The Essential Man Response

Chris Jones' article on Roger Ebert is a beautifully written journey through a portion of Ebert's life that allows the reader to develop an emotional connection with the story. Jones used multiple voices throughout the article in order to spice up the tone, imagery, and connection with the story line of the article. Chris Jones used third person the majority of the article as well as first person through Roger Ebert. The shifts between these two points of view allowed for the article to not only be more interesting, but also added a more personal touch to the reading. The reader can clearly see when Roger Ebert is saying something and when Jones is reflecting on things that he has observed himself.

The great detail that Chris Jones goes into while writing from his perspective is so thorough and allows for the reader to get involved in the scenery and what he himself is observing. For example, "He opens a new page in his text-to-speech program, a blank white sheet. He types in capital letters, stabbing at the keys with his delicate, trembling hands: my tribute, appears behind the cursor in the top left corner. on the first show after his death. But Ebert doesn’t press the button that fires up the speakers. He presses a different button, a button that makes the words bigger. He presses the button again and again and again, the words growing bigger and bigger and bigger until they become too big to fit the screen, now they’re just letters, but he keeps hitting the button, bigger and bigger still, now just shapes and angles, just geometry filling the white screen with black like the three squares. Roger Ebert is shaking, his entire body is shaking, and he’s still hitting the button, bang, bang, bang, and he’s shouting now. He’s standing outside on the street corner and he’s arching his back and he’s shouting at the top of his lungs" (Jones 7). This excerpt perfectly describes Roger getting upset and from the word choice, the imagery comes to life and the reader can feel Roger's anger. Although he cannot physically shout, you can feel the passion and imagine how angry he is that the words are shouting for him. The word choice used throughout the article is also what helped to drive the emotional aspect given to Jones' voice.

Chris Jones also uses the “voice” of Roger Ebert to convey his persona to the reader. The excerpts and notes that Ebert writes to Jones or on his blog and Jones' own observations help to formulate the positive, sweet, passionate, realistic and gentle man that Ebert is. The quote, "Ebert takes joy from the world in nearly all the ways he once did. He has had to find a new way to laugh—by closing his eyes and slapping both hands on his knees—but he still laughs… And he still finds joy in books, and in art, and in movies—a greater joy than he ever has” (Jones 7) is a perfect example of Ebert’s persona illustrated in the article.