Rhetorical Analysis Of An Evening With Mr Quentin Crisp

In the video “An Evening With MR QUENTIN CRISP (1980)”, the main speaker Mr. Quentin Crisp begins the speech by allowing the audience to acknowledge that the ideas he is presenting are different from world-wide standards and are not accepted by the mass. As he says: this is “consultation with psychiatrist madder than you are” (Mr. Quentin Crisp). The first idea that Mr. Quentin presents is the negative aspect of freedom. He believes that “extensive freedom makes people miserable” (Mr. Quentin Crisp). To prove the argument, his home country United Kingdom is used as an example. The people mentioned in the speech are capable of identifying that their lives are miserable, though are not capable of making a direct connection between the reason and the result (freedom and miserable life). Besides the low reasoning, the speaker is complaining that people of England are not capable of comparing the past with the present which according to him is the reason for the miserable life at the moment.

Quentin Crisp is also giving a solution to the rising problem. According to him, the first step towards a better life is creating “system begins with each of us trying to decide what it is that makes him the way he is” (Mr. Quentin Crisp). After understanding yourself from the inside (interior), only then you are allowed to look for the external definition of the personal identity. Second step is to acknowledge what other people say about you. That is where the person is capable of developing his negatively reflections of himself. The two sides of understanding yourself (own interior and other people’s opinion) are connected into one bigger picture which is the answer the question of existence. However, in order for people to survive together in the community, they need to adapt and show the others what they want to see. Your true you might not be what present people accept; therefore, adaptation to it is