Rhetorical Analysis Of Anti-Smoking Cigarettes

Since realizing smoking is associated with many health problems such as cancer, many advertisements are designed purposely to the end cigarette smoking. An estimated 40 million adults in the United States currently smoke cigarettes. Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States (CDC, 2016). Nowadays we are more conscious about how terrible smoking is for our health. Smoking cigarettes can be one of the most destructive things you can do to your body and yet millions of people around the world continue to do so. Anti-smoking ads fight the cancerous substance and hope to transform the minds of many or even the lives of many. It has become frequent in many advertisements to see the damage that smoking causes to someone and to others due to secondhand contact. Several anti-smoking advertisements are successful because they use the potential of death to scare people. The anti-smoking advertisement above is a prime example of this because it uses our fear of death to shame smokers to give up smoking. The advertisement employs the three rhetorical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos in its image and hinted meanings. With this, the image is able to communicate a dramatic impression of danger and advocates awareness of the deadliness of smoking.

Set in a black background, the advertisement displays a man on the left side with a cigarette between his lips. The tip of the cigarette creates smoke that fills the right side of the frame, with the smoke taking the shape of a “smoking” gun with its barrel pointing back at the man. At the bottom of the picture, a line of text can be seen that says “Kill a Cigarette and Save a Life. Yours.” Given these elements, the main idea of the image is that smoking kills. Particularly, smoking can kill the