Rhetorical Analysis Of Patrick Henry

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Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death: Patrick Henry Without the fight for freedom, liberty would not have been achieve. Patrick henry was a governor of Virginia. He gave the speech “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death.” In this speech he addressed the governors and delegates of the colonies. The enemy was the British; more specific king George the 3rd. There were two sides of this argument. Either wait for Britain to respond to the appeals they sent or to fight. The two sides were split, then Patrick Henry gave his speech in order to get the split sides unified. Patrick uses logos, ethos and pathos in order to get the delegates to see that war was not only necessary, but was happening. He also uses a lot of metaphors, the metaphors are used as a …show more content…

"But when shall we be stronger? Shall it be the next week, or the next year?” this is powerful at this point he is stating why not fight now, is their going to be a better time. They are as strong as they are going to be so why not? This is directed at the people who are not for the war. The last thing that is prominent in his speech is anaphora. He uses it to stress key points and or to urge a direct response. Anaphora "We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves..." These words were chosen to show that they have tried everything. They have plead, protested, begged, and figuratively laid face down. Doing all this and still haven’t had any results. Patrick Henry understands that being passive and or laying down was not acceptable. Doing that would be appeasement and would allow the British to take advantage of the colonies. Patrick would rather die a free man then to allow tyranny to come upon their newly established colonies. The people ultimately agreed with his reasoning. Without the use of schemes and tropes his speech would have lacked the power it …show more content…

He uses rhetoric effectively and in order to sway a group of delegates in his favor. He uses logos to establish his credibility, pathos to get the audience emotional and logos to show logic and to offer examples to why war was necessary. The other form of rhetoric he uses is schemes and tropes. These are used in order to give examples, in the form of allusions and metaphors. Also to get the crowed hyped by repetition. Patrick henrys main clause is that if the colonies do not stand up and fight for their independence than they will fall and become slaves and or killed. Looking at the options his speech swayed the votes witch led for the fight for independence. Analyzing his speech he uses a combination of rhetoric in order to show he was credible, as well as war was needed and was happening. This speech changed the outcome of history and will be remembered

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