The Power of Rhetoric and Oratory
1. Definitions
Rhetoric: the art of persuading an audience through intellectual and emotional effects of
language; includes invention (finding arguments), disposition (organizing arguments) and style
(choice of language that will effectively express the content)
Oratory: the art or practice of formal speaking in public; organized into deliberative (to
persuade an audience to accept or reject a proposal), forensic (for example in a judicial trial, to
achieve condemnation or approval of someone’s actions) and epideictic (a ceremonial occasion
to enlarge upon someone’s praiseworthiness)
2. Starter Ideas:

Oratory:
o
Cauchon on heresy (Scene 4)
o
Joan’s “alone with God and France” speech (Scene 5)
o
The Inquisitor’s heresy and “harden your hearts” speech (Scene 6)
o
Joan’s speech after tearing up her recantation: “sky, fields and flowers” (Scene 6)
o
The Soldier’s interrupted speech on kings, captains, bishops and lawyers (Epilogue)
o
Others?

What is the style and effect of each of these speeches? Are we meant to be moved? Convinced?
Amused? Frightened? Does the speech eloquently and logically defend something horrendous?

Rhetoric and Influence:
o
Consider how Joan changes her language, tone and bodily expression according to the person
she is trying to convince or change: Robert, the Archbishop, Charles, Dunois
o
Think about how the Archbishop, Dunois, Warwick, Cauchon and the Inquisitor also display
their abilities to use argument, tone or language to convince their listeners during the play.
Which characters are sincere and which tend to be manipulative? How are their styles, skills
and purposes different? Why did Shaw choose to give each of them the set of verbal or
intellectual skills that they possess?