Rhetorical Analysis Of Queen Elizabeth In The Spanish Armada

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With the approach of the Spanish Armada, Queen Elizabeth and England await an invasion force of the most powerful kingdom in Europe. With her fiery rhetoric and bold manner, Elizabeth injects her soldiers with the reassurance they need to fight a terrible enemy. Elizabeth divides her speech into three distinct sections: one for each of her goals. The first section establishes a clear connection between the queen and her soldiers based on loyalty and love. The second develops an image of Elizabeth as a “fighting queen,” a leader worth following, while the final section promises monetary rewards on top of the honor and glory a victory will bring. In total, Elizabeth seeks to replace her soldiers’ doubts with confidence and hope. Elizabeth’s first goal is perhaps the most important. She feels she must reaffirm an essential bond between herself and her troops. She, therefore, makes a plain show of her trust as she commits “our selves to armed multitudes.” Against such concepts as fear and treachery she balances her own style of rule with words such as trust, goodwill, loyalty, and love. Her point is obvious: her relationship …show more content…

Counteracting the view of women as weak in war, Elizabeth portrays herself as a warrior queen. Her use of antithesis downplays her sex and plays up her commitment and fearlessness: “I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and a king of England, too…” Surely, she must hope that such words will invoke a double response: one of admiration and one of respect and protectiveness. In this section, also, she establishes just for what her troops fight – her people, her country, and her God. They do not fight for her; they fight together for a collection of common causes. Phrased this way, Elizabeth levels the social classes into one, all those who will shed their blood for

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