Watson's Persuasion: The Rhetorical Analysis Of Emma Watson

All people are equal, but some are more equal than others. In today’s society, men are the ones deemed more equal than others. This division, this unequal treatment permeates all sectors of society. It is not a problem isolated to one country but rather one that every nation maintains. Emma Watson tackles the issue head on in her speech as goodwill ambassador to the UN. She seeks to instill, into the inclusive, feminist public that she constitutes, a will to education as she proposes the idea of an empathic awareness under the ideals of the third wave feminism that she advocates through the rhetorical strategies of consciousness raising and Aristotelian notions of pathos and ethos. Before the speech was even given, the Aristotelian rhetorical strategies were in play. The first strategy Emma Watson, and the UN make use of, is ethos. Ethos, very simply, is …show more content…
Emma Watson’s character and status makes her speech more effective and powerful before she even speaks a word. As Harrison Stall, a writer for The Vanderbilt Political Review, puts it, “From Harry Potter actress and dazzlingly successful model to Ivy League graduate and appointment as the new UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, Emma Watson is the definition of a ‘good’ role model.” Being such a positive role model and having the powerful ethos that she has, her message for gender equality is magnified and more impactful than if it was given by most other people. Emma Watson also makes use of the Aristotelian strategy of pathos to compliment her ethos. Pathos is persuasion when the listeners are “led to feel emotion”