Rhetorical Skills in “Votes for Women”: Not Diverse, Still Well Used
I was given an assignment to analyze the background history and the rhetorical skills used in a speech that I selected. The one I picked was a speech called “Votes for Women” by Mark Twain and the reason why I picked this is because both The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that he wrote are the two of my most favorite novels, and the speech itself also looked interesting in terms of both topic and rhetorical skills. To begin with, in order to thoroughly comprehend the speech, it is essential to comprehend the historical context of the speech, just as in the presidential election where one would look up for candidates’ life history rather …show more content…
First, he shows ethos by providing his experience at a church: “I remember on that occasion in the Hartford church the collection was being taken up. The appeal had so stirred me that I could hardly wait for the hat or plate to come my way” (Twain, 1). He gives the example in order to tell us the reason why “We are all creatures of sudden impulse” (Twain, 1) so that we should try to take action at once when we still have the fever. Secondly, as he keeps describing this experience, we can gradually see his transition of emotion, i.e. pathos. Right after he listened to the missionary’s appeal, he was extremely willing to make a lot of donation: “I had four hundred dollars in my pocket, and I was anxious to drop it in the plate and wanted to borrow more” (Twain, 1). Unfortunately, he had to wait quite a time to receive the donation plate, which cooled his good will so effectively than water could cool fire: “But the plate was so long in coming my way that the fever-heat of beneficence was going down lower and lower -- going down at the rate of a hundred dollars a minute” (Twain, 1). Finally, his mind went through complete transformation and lead him to take the exactly opposite action he was to take at the first place: “When it finally came to me, my enthusiasm had gone down so much that I kept my four hundred dollars -- and stole a dime from the plate” (Twain, 1). …show more content…
To start with the cons, I felt the proportion of the rhetorical devices was one-sided to parallel construction. If I were him, I would have changed some of the parallel constructions into other type of rhetorical devices such as tricolon, anaphora, and chiasmus. E.g. I could write “I should like to see the time come when women shall help to make the laws, and the laws help to improve women rights”. Nevertheless, the general use of the rhetorical skills was considerably effective because it was clear and simple, making the speech easy to comprehend. Also, the combination of pathos and ethos contributed to a better understanding of the point he tried to make and the transition progress in his
I was given an assignment to analyze the background history and the rhetorical skills used in a speech that I selected. The one I picked was a speech called “Votes for Women” by Mark Twain and the reason why I picked this is because both The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and its sequel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that he wrote are the two of my most favorite novels, and the speech itself also looked interesting in terms of both topic and rhetorical skills. To begin with, in order to thoroughly comprehend the speech, it is essential to comprehend the historical context of the speech, just as in the presidential election where one would look up for candidates’ life history rather …show more content…
First, he shows ethos by providing his experience at a church: “I remember on that occasion in the Hartford church the collection was being taken up. The appeal had so stirred me that I could hardly wait for the hat or plate to come my way” (Twain, 1). He gives the example in order to tell us the reason why “We are all creatures of sudden impulse” (Twain, 1) so that we should try to take action at once when we still have the fever. Secondly, as he keeps describing this experience, we can gradually see his transition of emotion, i.e. pathos. Right after he listened to the missionary’s appeal, he was extremely willing to make a lot of donation: “I had four hundred dollars in my pocket, and I was anxious to drop it in the plate and wanted to borrow more” (Twain, 1). Unfortunately, he had to wait quite a time to receive the donation plate, which cooled his good will so effectively than water could cool fire: “But the plate was so long in coming my way that the fever-heat of beneficence was going down lower and lower -- going down at the rate of a hundred dollars a minute” (Twain, 1). Finally, his mind went through complete transformation and lead him to take the exactly opposite action he was to take at the first place: “When it finally came to me, my enthusiasm had gone down so much that I kept my four hundred dollars -- and stole a dime from the plate” (Twain, 1). …show more content…
To start with the cons, I felt the proportion of the rhetorical devices was one-sided to parallel construction. If I were him, I would have changed some of the parallel constructions into other type of rhetorical devices such as tricolon, anaphora, and chiasmus. E.g. I could write “I should like to see the time come when women shall help to make the laws, and the laws help to improve women rights”. Nevertheless, the general use of the rhetorical skills was considerably effective because it was clear and simple, making the speech easy to comprehend. Also, the combination of pathos and ethos contributed to a better understanding of the point he tried to make and the transition progress in his