Heroes Rush In, but What Would Average Joe Do?

"Help! Help!" that is a word everybody responds to it never passes a person unnoticed. Neverthe-less not everyone is going to help someone in danger. James Barron tries to set focus on the eve-ryday hero in his article "Heroes rush in, but what would Average Joe do?". The New York Times published the article on the 7th of January 2007.

The everyday hero is the subject of Barron's article. He is, by asking people on the street, trying to find out what "Average Joe" would do if he were put in a situation where a hero was required.

Furthermore the language is very fitting for an article about the average person, because it is nei-ther slang nor very formal. It is a language everyone can understand. The article is quickly read since most of the sentences are short and the article consists mainly of quotations. This fits just right for a busy New Yorker on his way to work, which is the usual reader of The New York Times.

An intention of the article is to create respect for those people who help others and becomes "he-roes". Another intention is to make people realize that helping others is the right thing to do. . Barron shows both of these intentions, when he for instance lets Mike a retired telephone-company worker, only have 3 lines on p. 8, but Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly who en-courages people to be heroic and help others gets almost a page to express his opinions on p. 6-7. That New Yorkers are not obligated to live up to their reputation as selfish, but instead they can change into real life heroes when a child is in need. Barron uses many examples with children to appeal to the readers' emotions and thereby convince them to take action in dangerous situa-tions, if someone needs rescue or an old lady is getting mugged. Especially when asking whether or not you would save a child from a burning house, he touches peoples' hearts and that is a good and very clever way to convince the reader to help if a dangerous situation should occur....

...