Analyse rhetorical strategies in historical texts: set 2
Key notes :
Rhetorical strategies are the ways that a writer or speaker uses language to influence their audience. They include decisions about word choice, sentence structure, and tone, as well as repetition, metaphors, and other devices.
When you analyze an author’s rhetorical strategy, you can better understand what makes a text so effective. To do so, first consider the author’s purpose, or what the author hopes to accomplish with the text. For example, an author might want to inspire their audience or to persuade them to do something.
Then consider how an author’s use of language advances that purpose. For example, a metaphor may make a key idea more memorable, or a touching story may make the author’s causes seem more sympathetic.
Learn with an example
Read the following excerpt. It is adapted from a 1905 speech by Florence Kelley, a United States social worker and reformer.
- Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through, in the deafening noise of the spindles and the looms spinning and weaving cotton and wool, silks and ribbons for us to buy. . . .
- A girl of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the bobbins, may work eleven hours by day or by night. And they will do so tonight, while we sleep. . . .
- No one in this room tonight can feel free from such participation. The children make our shoes in the shoe factories; they knit our stockings, our knitted underwear in the knitting factories. They spin and weave our cotton underwear in the cotton mills. Children braid straw for our hats, they spin and weave the silk and velvet wherewith we trim our hats. They stamp buckles and metal ornaments of all kinds, as well as pins and hat-pins. Under the sweating system, tiny children make artificial flowers and neckwear for us to buy. They carry bundles of garments from the factories to the tenements, little beasts of burden, robbed of school life that they may work for us.
- We do not wish this. We prefer to have our work done by men and women. But we are almost powerless. Not wholly powerless, however, are citizens who enjoy the right of petition. For myself, I shall use this power in every possible way until the right to the ballot is granted, and then I shall continue to use both.
Adapted from Florence Kelley, speech before the convention of the National American Suffrage Association
Based on the excerpt, what is the purpose of Florence Kelley’s speech?
- to offer strategies to overcome child poverty
- to bring awareness to the predicament of working children
- to persuade the audience to take care of orphaned children
- to describe the benefits of school for working-class children
The purpose of Florence Kelley’s speech is to bring awareness to the predicament of working children.
You can tell because Kelley gives many details about how children work around the clock in factories.
Read the following excerpt. It is adapted from a 1942 speech by Mahatma Gandhi, delivered to the Indian National Congress as the country tried to free itself from British rule.
- Ours is not a drive for power, but purely a non-violent fight for India’s independence. The power, when it comes, will belong to the people of India, and it will be for them to decide in whom to place their trust.
- I believe that in the history of the world, there has not been a more genuinely democratic struggle for freedom than ours. In the democracy which I have envisioned, a democracy established by non-violence, there will be equal freedom for all. Everybody will be his own master. It is to join a struggle for such democracy that I invite you today. . . .
- Our quarrel is not with the British people, we fight their imperialism. The proposal for the withdrawal of British power did not come out of anger. We cannot evoke the true spirit of sacrifice and valour, so long as we are not free. I know the British Government will not be able to withhold freedom from us, when we have made enough self-sacrifice. We must, therefore, purge ourselves of hatred. Speaking for myself, I can say that I have never felt any hatred. As a matter of fact, I feel myself to be a greater friend of the British now than ever before. One reason is that they are today in distress. My very friendship, therefore, demands that I should try to save them from their mistakes.
Adapted from Mahatma Gandhi, ‘Quit India’
Based on the excerpt, what is the purpose of Mahatma Gandhi’s speech?
- to discuss the characteristics of an ideal Indian democracy
- to explain why India is capable of self-rule
- to present British colonial rulers with a non-violent compromise
- to persuade listeners to protest British rule peacefully
The purpose of Mahatma Gandhi’s speech is to persuade listeners to protest British rule peacefully.
You can tell because Gandhi urges listeners to join him in the struggle to achieve ‘a democracy established by non-violence’.
Read the following excerpt. It is adapted from a 1879 speech by Chief Joseph, a leader of the Native American Nez Perce tribe who became famous as an advocate and defender of his people.
- If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backwards as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth, and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper. I only ask of the Government to be treated as all other men are treated.
- We ask that the same law shall work alike on all men. If the Indian breaks the law, punish him by the law. If the white man breaks the law, punish him also. . . .
- Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other, then we will have no more wars. We shall all be alike—brothers of one father and one mother, with one sky above us and country around us, and one government for all. For this time the Indian race are waiting and praying.
Adapted from Chief Joseph, ‘An Indian’s View of Indian Affairs’
Based on the excerpt, what is the purpose of Chief Joseph’s speech?
- to call for legal equality between white men and Native Americans
- to convince the government to return the country to his tribe
- to ask for recognition for the accomplishments of Native Americans
- to persuade the government to punish white men for breaking laws
The purpose of Chief Joseph’s speech is to call for legal equality between white men and Native Americans.
You can tell because Chief Joseph maintains that in order for white people to live in harmony with Native Americans, the government must ‘treat all men alike.’
let’s practice!
Read the following excerpt. It is adapted from a 1905 speech by Florence Kelley, a United States social worker and reformer.
- Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through, in the deafening noise of the spindles and the looms spinning and weaving cotton and wool, silks and ribbons for us to buy. . . .
- A girl of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the bobbins, may work eleven hours by day or by night. And they will do so tonight, while we sleep. . . .
- No one in this room tonight can feel free from such participation. The children make our shoes in the shoe factories; they knit our stockings, our knitted underwear in the knitting factories. They spin and weave our cotton underwear in the cotton mills. Children braid straw for our hats, they spin and weave the silk and velvet wherewith we trim our hats. They stamp buckles and metal ornaments of all kinds, as well as pins and hat-pins. Under the sweating system, tiny children make artificial flowers and neckwear for us to buy. They carry bundles of garments from the factories to the tenements, little beasts of burden, robbed of school life that they may work for us.
- We do not wish this. We prefer to have our work done by men and women. But we are almost powerless. Not wholly powerless, however, are citizens who enjoy the right of petition. For myself, I shall use this power in every possible way until the right to the ballot is granted, and then I shall continue to use both.
Adapted from Florence Kelley, speech before the convention of the National American Suffrage Association