Not like in the movies

Table of Contents

A Rhetorical Analysis of “Not like the movies” by Melisa-Maurice P. Janse van Rensburg“Not like the movies” by Melisa-Maurice P. Janse van Rensburg, Melisa-Maurice talks about a woman who fell in love with the idea of a what a nurse in the Second World War was, after watching a black and white film on a nurse and a pilot who fell in love during the Second World War. She wanted to study to be a nurse and live the life the nurse in the film lived; white picket fence, a dog, 2 children, return as a heroine from the war and marry a pilot.

She set out to become a nurse, but after many traumatic experiences realizes that it was not what she had wished for. She talks about a specific event “St. James Church massacre in Cape Town on July 25, 1993” where shootings and bombings took place killing 11 people and injuring 50 more. Melisa-Maurice P. Janse Van Rensburg was on autopilot that day, as she went past many whom were now dead; a mother who had beat cancer, a young man with a bullet hole through his head, a 21 year old boy whom had thrown himself over a grenade these are just some of the people that died during the St. James Massacre.

After the St. James massacre she continued with schooling, with a hope to escape the memories she moved to england to pursue a slightly different line of work. She continued with her education but choose to study Psychiatry in a hope to better understand the traumatic event she had witnessed in Cape Town. After being in England for 2 years she moved to Canada where she became a Licensed Practical Nurse. Although in the end she did not have a white picket fence, a dog, or the glory of returning from the war as a hero that she had hoped for, she was married (not to a young pilot), she had 1 child and became a Nurse, for that she is proud.