She uses these images to explain the woman’s behavior so specifically that as readers we feel the cracks of the Saltine crackers as we read and in doing so the author is exemplifying the slow routines of a person that isn’t happy being alone. Ascher uses imagery and description to show the specific details of her observations so as readers we feel and see what she envisions about the nature of solitude. In conclusion, Barbara Ascher uses the rhetorical strategies of compare and contrast and description and imagery to reflect on the nature of solitude in her essay “The Box Man”. She shows us this by comparing the events she observed and contrasting the different scenarios. In addition, she uses imagery and description to clearly point out what she saw and how she interprets her observations. Ascher gives us two different perspectives of people that are alone, one is happy and the others are unhappy. Having the choice to be alone is ours and if we make that choice, we will be happier than having the inevitable circumstance hit us when we don’t want it to. She shows us that being alone doesn’t necessarily mean that we are