Samuel Johnson Debtors Prison Rhetorical Analysis

In the excerpt “Debtors’ Prison” author Samuel Johnson responds to comments made about a letter he a sent to a British lawmaker about individuals who could not pay their debts and were commonly sent to debtors’ prisons. Johnson incorporates rhetorical strategies such as emotional language and statistics to help shape his argument that the British lawmakers shouldn’t imprison the debtors. Johnson first utilizes strong emotional loaded language to help persuade British lawmakers not to imprison the debtors. For example, when Johnson states “what is the Sun of evil which the imprisonment of debtors brings upon our country” he clarifies that the imprisonment of the debtors is unethical and should not be “upon our country”. Johnson uses the satanic phrase “Sun of evil” to compare it to the corrupt system of government to convey the laws they established imprisoning the …show more content…
An example of statistics is when Johnson states “Thus perish yearly five thousand men (…), many of them in most vigorous and useful part of life” to exhibit the unnecessary death of innocent and useful men. Johnson explains the men that died in the prison could have been paying off their debts by working in farms and be a “useful part of life” instead of being unproductive in their cells. Johnson is offering a different solution to the debtor’s punishment, to put them at work and help the society instead of placing them in prisons being ineffective. Another example of statistics is when Johnson states “we detain twenty thousand in prisons, we shut up in darkness and uselessness two thirds of an army which ourselves judge equal to the defense of our country.” Johnson utilizes this to compare the number of debtors in prison to an army. Since there are overwhelmingly numbers of debtors, Johnson believes putting useful people into prison is an outrageous thing to do because it’ll reduce productivity and benefits to the