Juliano Brozell

Honors English, Period 3

3/21/19
Rhetorical Analysis Essay

The use of rhetoric in the three stories help to persuade the readers of each story, but each
story comes to different forms of rhetoric used. Ethos, Pathos, and Logos are used to persuade
readers on their points of views to get the reader to understand the emotions of the author and to
feel what might have been through the words on paper. Each use of rhetoric is used by the
storytellers in a way that can make the readers sympathize for him/her, and in doing so can cause
people to believe that they say (which is the main purpose for rhetoric in this sense). But, out of
each story, which one would represent rhetoric the most?
One of the many stories which include the use of rhetoric is the Letter from Birmingham
Jail, which was mainly made for the purpose of making the church look bad since they didn’t
allow for the people of the same church to gather. One piece of evidence to help support this is,
“But despite these notable expectations I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed
with the church.” (LFBJ 9) This helps to represent Pathos because it can make the audience feel
as if they were feeling bitter towards the people who denied MLK the right to march. Another
piece of evidence that can help to prove rhetoric is, “There was a time when the church was very
powerful.” (LFBJ 10) This piece of evidence helps to show Logos by showing how using the
church to appeal to the masses of the religious logical standpoint, In doing so can cause the
church to look worse. The usage of rhetoric was successful because it made the church of Christ
look bad when they denied King the right to march.
Another one of the stories that include the use of rhetoric is the story The Genetics of
Justice, where it used rhetoric to express why social justice and equality was needed in a
dictatorship of a government in the Dominican Republic. A piece of evidence to help support the
use of rhetoric is, “Then I started to work on my second novel, my mother heard from one of my
sisters that I was writing about the dictatorship… This time, my mother warned, I was not just
going to anger family members, but I would be directly responsible for their lives.” (Page 5) This
helps to show Pathos because it tried to get the mother of Alvarez to make her feel as if she was
doing something wrong with her novels in exposing the dictatorship of Raphael Trujillo, and
how it would have potentially harmed her family. Another piece of evidence to help show
rhetoric is, "By the time my mother married my father, however, she knew all about the true
nature of the dictatorship. Thousands had lost their lives in failed attempts to return the country
to democracy." (Page 1) This helps to show and represent Pathos once more because it’s an
appeal to the emotions of the audience and how one event can cause people to feel a certain way
about an event that happened recently. The usage of rhetoric is successful to the extent of pathos
in this story is mainly about how the appeal to emotion is high, and how it can cause the
audience to mainly feel for the character for the majority of the story.
 The final story that includes the use of rhetoric to the extent of an emotional appeal to the
audience, not much of usage with logical evidence, with the fact that the girl Malala has
constantly explained how she was attacked for the sole purpose of wanting equality and social
justice in a land of close-minded people. A piece of evidence to help support this is, "I speak not
for myself, but so those without a voice can be heard. Those who have fought for their rights.
Their right to live in peace. Their right to be treated with dignity. Their right to equality of
opportunity. Their right to be educated." (Page 1) This helps to represent Pathos by appealing to
the reading audience, and how she explains that even the simplest thing, such as equal education
for boys and girls, can help to appeal to the masses with the emotion that she puts in this part of
the speech. Another piece of evidence to help support this is, "Today I am focusing on women's
rights and girls' rights education because they are suffering the most." (Page 2) This helps to
represent Pathos because it can give more appeal to the emotion that is shown through the fact
that she’s explaining her ideas for equality in her society. The usage of rhetoric is successful to
the extent of pathos, and how it can only seem to appeal to the emotions of a reader rather than
the actual range of rhetoric.
From reading each story and analyzing each form of rhetoric used in the stories, the story
that seems to have the best use of rhetoric in it was the Letter From Birmingham Jail letter
written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It’s the most successful due to the fact that there is a wide
range of rhetoric being used in it, as well as an appeal to logic. The way that each story is
successful with rhetoric, however, is the fact that each story can appeal to the emotions of the
reader with certain phrases and statements in which it can cause the reader to feel as if they were
in the shoes of the author.