Rhetorical Devices In Ted Talk

How long can you hold your breath? How long is the limitation for a man holding his breath from your perspective (setting). In the TED talk that I watched, a man named David (author) illustrates his personal experience to not only all his audiences and people who watch the TED talk but also doctors or scientists who are attractive to the title of this TED talk and want to dig more (audience), demonstrating an answer to the question above. Besides, David is demonstrating that nothing is impossible (purpose) through his suffering experiences while he was training himself to hold breath as long as he could be(text). At the same time, the author mainly used two rhetorical appeals, which are Ethos and Pathos, to illustrate his story. How he deploys

the story by using the rhetorical appeals is really convincing and fascinating.
The very first rhetorical appeal he uses is Ethos. David (who is the author of this TED talk) listed a series of challenges, which he had accomplished before, such as buried himself alive in a coffin for 7 days and froze himself for 3 days (setting) to his audiences. The purpose is to demonstrate that he is able to achieve things, which seem to be impossible to do. All of the challenges he listed were fairly challenging, however, the real purpose behind was to lead to the real challenge that he is going to attempt. Next, David mentions one of his friends, who is a
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neurosurgeon, telling David that holding breath over 6 minutes might lead to a severe brain damage.

The role of the neurosurgeon is to gain even more credibility from the audience by showing the scientific fact that holding breath for 17 minutes, which is the goal, could be impossible. Then David tells a story about a boy, who fell through ice and trapped for 45 minutes, but turned out to be fine. The story becomes a trigger later in David's life; He starts to train himself holding breath as long as he could. He uses this story to prove that holding breath over 6 minutes is doable.
The other rhetorical David applies in his talk is Pathos. David lists some attempts he tried before he challenges himself to hold breath for 17 minutes for real, including one of the attempts that doctors stick a bit of tube in David’s throat, which is visually shocking to his audiences. Both his description and the video he shows are demonstrating the audience how hard and painful it is to actually hold breath for a long period of time. Sleeping in a hypoxic tent, which simulates altitude at 15,000 feet, is another attempt David uses to train himself, and he uses phrase wiped out. He says that in the morning, he feels like his brain is wiped out and suffers from headache a lot along with his whole journey. This advocates a sentimental environment to the audience. Also, David uses chronological order while he is telling one of his attempts. He tells exactly

how much he suffers at specific period of time, which connects
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the audience to his personal experience simultaneously. Finally, he physically cries at the end of his speech when he draws a conclusion by saying that he pushes through the pain to be the best that he can be.
David eventually accomplished what he wants to achieve through all of these painful and suffering moments and it must have been the most precious memory in David’s life. The person experience David illustrates is amazing and impressive. What I acquire from this TED talk is that there is always something that you could have been finished but you did not due to the deficiency of determination and insistence. Both determination and insistence are exactly the Telos of David's speech. He would not achieve his goal if he stopped when the neurosurgeon told him not to do; He would not achieve his goal if he stopped when he failed his first attempt; He would not achieve his goal if he stopped when he suffered from a lot of pain. David listed all his attempts and efforts to show how determination and insistence had an effect in his life. That is how he used Telos in his speech. Also how he deploys the story through the rhetorical appeals is also a good example to me. Using the rhetorical appeal makes the argument or story that you are illustrating more arrestive and dramatic.
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Reference
TED talk: David Blaine. How I held my breath for 17 minutes. (2008)