“I wish it were a diamond.”
Rareness is a big deal to human beings. People, especially women, love jewelry such as diamond rings because they are beautiful and rare (few people can afford to buy them). If a woman wears a glass ring, few will feel jealous of her. Even though a glass ring was once seen as valuable, no one cares much about such rings these days. The reason for this is pretty simple -- glass is no longer rare. When you lose your glass ring, you can easily get a new one. People will not likely pay much attention to things that are painlessly replaced.
The most famous coffee chain shop in the world, Starbucks, is well-known for aggressive growth, opening some stores only a few city blocks away from others. People like to go to Starbucks because of its brand value even though their products cost more than other coffee stores. Having a cup of coffee at Starbucks gives is sort of like wearing a diamond ring. However, as a result of their aggressive growth, Starbucks is becoming more accessible. Sometimes someone can even be sitting in a Starbucks and see another across the street. As the diamond ring changes into a glass ring, Starbucks will lose its value.
This cartoon drawn by Jeff Darcy on July 2nd 2008 shows that people do not care about Starbucks closing stores in the same way that people do not care about losing a glass ring. The cartoon describes Starbucks in a weird place, Mars, and shows WALL-E, a garbage-collecting robot cleaning up the store.
On the left of this cartoon, Starbucks is described on Mars, which cannot be possible at all in reality. This typical Starbucks store hangs a sign board on their window which says “this store closing” in a dark back ground. Looking at the Starbucks symbol mark on top, you will recognize the symbol is different from what you see every day; she looks very miserable. Nearby the Starbucks WALL-E is activated (You see his path) to complete his work of collecting and compressing garbage, saying “WELL THEY DID OVER EXPAND” in the center of this cartoon. Great, Take. すごい。。高校生のように書いたぜ
By describing a Starbucks store on Mars, Jeff suggests that Starbucks opens too many stores, especially in weird places. No one can go and get a cup of coffee at Starbucks on Mars. It is completely useless. This cartoon also implies something about their aggressive growth on Earth— too many stores on Earth in too many ridiculous places. Though Starbucks spread its business to Mars in the hope of attracting new customers, the operation did not go well and led in the end to store closure. The sign board gives us a clear reason why the symbol looks so miserable. After all, the store becomes part of WALL-E’s garbage because of Starbucks’ careless growth.
WALL-E, a robot from a famous Disney movie, plays an important role to emphasize their poor operation by saying “WELL THEY DID OVER EXPAND.” In the movie, WALL-E is a main character and is designed to clean up a polluted Earth far in the future as a result of people throwing away too much garbage. Considering this, Starbucks on Mars is clearly defined as garbage and undoubtedly emphasizes the uselessness of the store. Also, ‘WELL THEY DID OVER EXPAND’ briefly explains the reason why Starbucks is forced to close the store. Starbucks opening too many stores to manage well, some of them are in unreasonable places, led to its store closings. Drawing WALL-E in this cartoon emphasizes that store closings are the fault of Starbucks’ poor business plan.
Analyzing the context of this cartoon, one can (avoid using I, we, our, me, my, etc. in papers) notice that it puts much more emphasis on Starbucks’ over expansion than on its closing stores. While closing stores typically draws the most attention, here the focus is the reason behind these closings. First this cartoon uses logos to illustrate why closing the store is Starbucks’ fault. Starbucks on Mars emphasizes Starbucks’ aggressive and careless growth. Another logos is the relation between the location on Mars and the sign board. People cannot exist on Mars so that the store should not be opened for business.
We can also see another rhetorical appeal, pathos. The sign board and the symbol mark cause us to feel pity for the closing store. WALL-E and his comment, however, contradict the feeling of pity and make us feel more strongly that closing stores is Starbucks’s own fault.
Most importantly, Jeff uses ethos to illustrate peoples’ lack of concern through this cartoon. He intentionally chooses Mars which is far from Earth and WALL-E who is an animated character. In addition, Jeff does not draw any human being or other real thing besides Starbucks. Therefore, this cartoon expresses that this event, like watching animation, has no actual impact on customers.
Does Starbucks’ closing stores cause any larger social problems? Considering only customers, the answer is ‘No’. In fact, customers will not be affected so badly; most will hardly pay attention to the fact. Some of them might need to walk or drive a longer distance to get a cup of coffee at Starbucks, but they still can get it. Others may not even notice that one Starbucks on their block is closed.
By looking at this cartoon, one can realize how badly Starbucks overexpanded their business. What could Starbucks have done instead of store closure? Starbucks has to find ideal locations with more careful planning. They should put their stores at least 10 miles distance each other so that one store in that area will be more valuable.
Starbucks’ products have a great brand value, but they may lose their value because of overly aggressive growth. While Starbucks expands its business, it must be careful to maintain its value and not become like a glass ring.
Darcy, Jeff. "So Long Starbucks." Daryl Cagle's Professional Cartoonists Index. 3 Feb. 2009 .


Take, great paper. If I’m the first person to edit this, then I’m really amazed at your English skills. Make sure to double space your citation at the bottom here. Put it on a Separate page, with the title of the page being “Works Cited”.

If you have any questions about the changes I made feel free to give me a call or email Sorry about rock climbing Friday, I just did not want to throw up on the climbing wall.

Next time we do conversation table I can try to explain the difference between , and ;

If you can’t think of anything else to say to get to 1500 words, look up some more sources about starbucks itself. Find out how they got to be so big. Where did they originate from? Give some company history.

Jya ne.