The Tempest Rhetorical Analysis

After King Lear’s two oldest daughters, Goneril and Regan express their love for their father in a flattering speech they were granted their share of the kingdom, and Cordelia his youngest daughter and favorite daughter refused to play along, Lear felts she was disrespectful and she was banished from his sight. Cordelia bids farewell to her sisters, and tells them that she knows they don’t love him, “I know you what you are, and like a sister am most loath to call your faults as they are named.” (1.2.273-275). “Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides; who covers faults, at last shame them derides. Well may you prosper!” (1.2.284-286). Once Cordelia left, Goneril and Regan revealed to the audience that they had no love for their father.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his bold novel, The Scarlet Letter tackles a variety of themes that include: sin, guilt, redemption, postfeminism, and organized religion's abuse of power. Hawthorne spoke in a somber and grim tone, designed to arouse a sense of suspense for his readers. The audience in which he was addressing would have been conservative Christians and women suffragettes, all of whom reflected the ideologies during this time period. By instilling clever diction, Hawthorne exposes hypocrisy in Puritanism and objects against the religion's superfluous punishments; which force individuals to endure unnecessary and extreme suffering.

Rhetoric refers to the study of the ways speakers and writers utilizes words in influencing the audience. Therefore, a rhetorical analysis refers to the essay where a non-fiction work is broken down into parts and it is used in the creation of a specific effect. A rhetorical analysis must assess the goals of the rhetorician, the tools used and the effectiveness of those tools. In writing a rhetorical analysis, one does not argue on the tools used but instead discusses the ways the rhetorician makes an argument and whether he or she uses a successful approach. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a fiction novel for children which was written by C.S. Lewis and was published by Geoffrey Bles in 1950. It is regarded as one of the renowned and first published novels of The Chronicles of Narnia and it is held in libraries. Most parts of the novel are set in Narnia, which is believed to be a land with talking animals and mythical creatures ruling into the deep winter. This paper seeks to compare the novel and movie adaptation of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The book is divided into five sections, each one being subdivided into different strategies on how to use rhetoric to your advantage, in any given situation.

The first chapter introduced the reader to the art of rhetoric. He describes how rhetoric works through real life examples. He demonstrates ways that rhetoric persuades us like, argument from strength, and seduction. He tells the reader that the sole purpose of arguing is to persuade the audience. He showed that the chief purpose of arguing is to also achieve consensus, a shared faith in a choice.

Based on Homer’s word choice in The Odyssey, he seems to be disgusted with Odysseus’s tone in Book 9. This is clear because in the text Odysseus tells Alcinous the king of Phaecians about his journey up to that time. He explained how his home in Ithaca was the loftiest of them all and goes on to state with no remark that he was detained by the goddesses for seven years. He states, “Loveliest among goddesses, who held me in her smooth caves, to be her heart’s delight, as Circe of Aeaea, the enchantress, desired me…But in my heart I never gave consent.” (Line 20). This means that Odysseus sees himself as a lady’s man, he explains how the goddesses desired him and wanted him to be their “hearts delight”. Homer seems disgusted with Odysseus at

Powerful words are used in the world of “Othello” and can create order or chaos. Othello uses language when he tells his stories of war to Desdemona and as a result wins her heart. A positive example of the power of language is how Othello and Desdemona fall in love (Krieger, 2012). “She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished that heaven had made her such a man” (I, iii, 160-161). Iago uses the negative power of language as corruption to

Ira C. Herbert, an executive of the Coca-Cola company, and Richard Seavers, a representative of Grove Press, are the speakers of their own respective letters and they both focus on the motto “It’s the real thing”. Herbert’s purpose is to convince Seavers to stop using the motto “It’s the real thing” and to use a different one and Seavers purpose is to address Herbert’s concerns about the motto and defends his company’s right to keep using the motto. Herbert adopts a friendly tone in order to point out what Seaver was doing, using the same slogan Coca-Cola uses. Seaver adopts a serious tone to guide Herbert what had happened to Herbert and the company of Coca-Cola. Herbert and Seaver use different rhetorical strategies in order to persuade

In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Brutus and Antony attempt to persuade the audience of their position on the death of Caesar. While Brutus explains that his death was necessary, Antony claims that Caesar was not deserving of his demise. However, though Brutus does have ample credibility and taps into the emotional link with his audience to some extent, he does not convey as powerful of an argument as Antony, as he fails to provide sufficient factual evidence. Antony, on the other hand, utilizes logical argumentation with solid evidence, creates an emotional connection with his audience, and maintains credibility in order to support his own argument. Through this, it can be seen that Antony’s use of rhetorical appeals and devices is superior

To do a rhetorical analysis of this speech we would follow the Neo-Aristotelian approach. The Neo-Aristotelian approach consists of five canons which are invention, organization, style, memory and delivery. First I will start off with Invention. According to Foss "the critic's concern in applying the canon of invention is with the speaker's major ideas, line of argument, or content" (29). Invention is divided into two categories: external proofs and internal proofs. External proofs "include sources used by the author but does not create, including testimony of eyewitnesses" (Foss 29). I will focus on the internal proofs of this speech, which are logos or logical argument; ethos, the appeal of the speaker's character and pathos, emotional appeal.

Gerard A. Hauser covers a plethora of details on how to create a well-made persuasive argument in his book, an Introduction to Rhetorical Theory; however, he covered three specific essentials that are necessary for persuasion: the components logos, pathos and ethos; purposive discourse and rhetorical competence; identification. I will argue for each constituent, respectively, to prove that persuasion cannot thrive without the aforementioned essentials.

During the Renaissance, there were seven subjects/skills that were considered essential for a free person to know, known as the liberal arts. Among those seven is the art of persuasive speaking and writing called rhetoric. Rhetoric became increasingly popular during this period and this could be seen through a lot of Renaissance works such as in “Letters of Catherine of Siena”, “Letters of Petrarch”, and “Erasmus, Julius Excluded from Heaven.” The three works all have one thing in common; it utilizes the art of persuasion. However, due to the fact that the authors have different motives and backgrounds, they ended up using different strategies to persuade their audiences.

   A production of The Tempest should emphasize the idealized methods in which Prospero uses magic to solve the problem of revenge which is so prevalent throughout his tragedies, perhaps the production might be a direct allegory for the magic of the theatre itself.   In this conception of the play, the scattering and bringing together of the characters in the script is significant in that theatre also could be said to bring people together and allow them to share in an experience of emotion, magic, and finally, of resolution. In this way the production could be used as a vehicle for conveying the idealistic virtues of forgiveness, compassion, and of course knowledge. In his book, A

Cassius, Brutus, and Antony use rhetoric successfully in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, albeit each differently and for different causes. Each of these men uses his skills in rhetoric to convince each other and at some points the entire population of Rome to follow his beliefs. However, each of these men has different motivations to do so, as well as different characteristics and general worldviews.

Everything about Othello’s mind, on the contrary, is direct, healthy, objective; with an openness and docility of childhood he loses himself in