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WORDS LIKE LOADED PISTOLS – A CLOSE LOOK AT RHETORIC
There are three types of persuasive appeals: ethos, logos, and pathos.
1. ETHOS - RELATABLE LIKEABILITY
a. how the audience perceives the speaker/writer
b. how the audience relates to the speaker/writer
For example:
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Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
Margaret Thatcher’s argument that she ran England like a frugal housewife.
Bill Clinton’s “I feel your pain.”
George W. Bush is born to a life of privilege in Connecticut, but he acts like a
redneck and proclaims his love of pork rinds.
MLK imitated language from the Bible, the Constitution (“we hold these
truths”), patriotic songs (“let freedom ring”) and Shakespeare (“the
sweltering summer of the Negro’s discontent) to relate to his audience.
King also employed the ultimate ethos by creating call and response
situations with the crowd that allowed them to become part of the speech.
According to Kenneth Burke, “You persuade [people] only insofar as you can speak
[their] language...identifying your ways with theirs” (A Rhetoric of Motives).
c. Ethos impacts the other two types of appeal; if the audience perceives the writer
as unethical, unlikeable, they won’t follow the remainder of the point.
2. LOGOS – PERSUASIVE ARGUMENTS
a. Logos is the arguments that move your points forward
b. One important consideration of logos is presenting arguments that your audience
will relate to. As Will Rogers said, “When you go fishing, you bait the hook, not
with what you like, but with what the fish likes.”
3. PATHOS – APPEAL TO EMOTIONS: EXCITEMENT, FEAR, LOVE, PATRIOTISM, AMUSEMENT
a. Rather than boring statistics, pathos moves the audience to a conclusion through
emotions:
For example:
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The adorable chipmunk on the cover of a pamphlet becomes a bloody mass
of fur in the next picture, creating disgust at the idea of wearing fur.
A charity pamphlet asks you if you can fit your finger through the hole on the
cover of the pamphlet. When you open the pamphlet you find the hole is the
size of a starving child’s arm, and you should donate money to this charity to
prevent hunger.
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Nixon is charged with taking bribes; he apologizes and says he considered
them “gifts” and he is willing to return them. He then goes on to say one of
the “bribes” was a cocker spaniel named Checkers and his children will be
heartbroken. He received four million correspondences in the next few
weeks encouraging him to keep his gifts and continue with his good work.
EXERCISE:
Examine the following examples and identify the use of ethos, logos, and/or pathos.
Be prepared to discuss.
1. Friends, Romans, countrymen. Lend me your ears! ... I am no orator as Brutus
is;/ but as you know me all, a plain, blunt man.... (Anthony in Julius Caesar)
2. Sure we want to go home. We want this war over with. The quickest way to get it
over with is to get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the
quicker we can go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. And
when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son of a
bitch Hitler. Just like I’d shoot a snake. (General George S. Patton)
3. Well, that’s about it. That’s all we have. That’s what we owe. It isn’t very much.
But Pat [his wife] and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we’ve got is
honestly ours. Pat doesn’t have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable
Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her she’d look good in anything. (Richard
Nixon answering charges that he accepted bribes and his wife had a mink coat.)
4. Personally, I am always very nervous when I begin to speak. Every time I make a
speech, I feel I am submitting to judgment, not only about my ability but my
character and honor. I am afraid of either seeming to promise more than I can
perform, which suggests complete irresponsibility, or perform less than I can, which
suggests bad faith and indifference. (Cicero, Roman orator)
5. I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.
(Lincoln’s first inaugural address)
6. Lastly say a word about ourselves. How the new government was formed. Tell
the story Chamberlain’s actions. Imperative there should be loyalty. Union among
men who have joined hands. Otherwise no means of standing the shocks and strains
which are coming. I have a right to depend loyalty.... (Winston Churchill’s notes for
speech to secret session of Commons, 1940)
FASCINATING FACT: Winston Churchill wrote eight volumes of speeches. From 1900
to 1955 he averaged a speech a week. He coined expressions such as: “blood, toil,
tears and sweat,” “their finest hour,” “the end of the beginning,” “business as usual,”
“iron curtain,” “summit meeting,” and “peaceful coexistence.” A contemporary of his
said, “Winston has spent the better part of his life writing impromptu speeches.”
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WORDS LIKE LOADED PISTOLS – A CLOSE LOOK AT RHETORIC
7. You can see me as the man who does not belong to any class, to any caste, who is
above all that. I have nothing but a connection to the German people. (Adolph
Hitler to laborers at the Dynamo Works in Berlin in 1933)
8. In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the
architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the
Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every
American was to fall heir. This not was a promise that all men, yes, black men as
well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. (Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream)
9. The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge. I face
this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations, but I
also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. (Barack
Obama’s response to his presidential nomination)