Rhetoric Analysis methods of Alfred M. Green Essay

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Rhetoric Analysis Methods of Alfred M. Green
Rhetoric is a valuable tool in public speaking. It enables speakers to gain the attention of an audience and persuade them through the use of words. Effective use of rhetoric requires a comprehensive understanding of the available methods. The three most common rhetorical devices are ethos, pathos, and logos. Ethos is an appeal to ethics. Speakers appeal to an audience's ethics by presenting themselves as credible individuals. Through ethos, a speaker shows the audience that they are the most qualified individuals to talk about the said topic. Using pathos, a speaker appeals to the audience's emotions. Pathos is perhaps the most powerful of the rhetoric devices. It requires a keen understanding of one's audience and perfect timing while presenting one's argument. Logos is an appeal to logic. This is the simplest of the three devices. It requires the speaker to apply logic in their speech to show that their argument is reasonable. An audience will endeavor to identify loopholes in one's argument. Therefore, providing a logical position helps to eliminate any doubt. Other rhetoric devices include alliteration, anaphora, accismus, and antimetabole. This paper explores the rhetorical devices used by Alfred Green in his speech.
The first rhetoric device used by Green is Accismus. Accismus is the refusal of something one wants to convince others that something else is what they want. When calling on African Americans to join the Civil War of 1861, Green is making the war a priority over other African Americans' problems during this period. Due to slavery African Americans had been subjected to the worst treatment ever experienced. In the South, African Americans were used as slaves, where they mostly worked on cotton fields. Despite slavery being disallowed in the North, African Americans still did not enjoy equal rights. Therefore, African Americans ought to have been fighting for equal rights. However, in his speech, Green asserted that this was not the main concern for African Americans at the time. Instead, he chose to show them that they needed to identify themselves as true patriots. The way to do this was by joining the Union army. While this may not have been well-received by African Americans in the region, it made them question if they were patriotic citizens. Nonetheless, Green mentions tha...