Let's Not Use Mars As A Backup Planet Rhetorical Analysis

In the TEDTalk video, Let’s Not Use Mars as a Backup Planet by Lucianne Walkowicz, she makes use of several rhetorical devices such as: parallelism, imagery, simile, and metaphor in order to further her claim that is, people should take responsibility of the Earth rather than spending valuable time on making Mars a possible planet for people to move in, which will take hundred of years. Walkowicz makes use of parallelism to highlight the comparison between Earth and Mars. For instance, “though these Martian vistas resemble the deserts of our own home world, places that are tied in our imagination to ideas about pioneering and frontiers, compared to Earth, Mars is a pretty terrible place to live. Consider the extent to which we have not colonized the …show more content…
Walkowicz makes use of imagery to highlight the issues happening in today’s society. An example of this is when she states, “Glaciers and sea ice that have been with us for millennia are now disappearing in a matter of decades” (Walkowicz 3). This example functions as imagery because it elicits a clear image of what’s happening all over the world. This gives off an emotional appeal because it gives us a visual image of what’s happening to the glaciers and ice. Walkowicz also uses simile to highlight that Mars will not backup humanity. For instance, “There are many excellent reasons to go to Mars, but for anyone to tell you that Mars will be there to back up humanity is like the captain of the Titanic telling you that the real party is happening later on the lifeboats” (Walkowicz 9). This example functions as a simile because she’s comparing Mars and Titanic using the word “like”. This gives off an emotional appeal by comparing both Mars and Titanic because she states that Mars will not be able to backup humanity if Earth was in the process of destruction. Lastly, she makes use of metaphor to highlight how humanity is weighing down