Rhetorical Devices Used To Characterize The Dragon

The decisions we make impact our future like the people from the past. Therefore, we ultimately decide our future. Drawing from the past, our predecessors have created the present. Continuing this cycle, we are now the ones creating the future. Ever since the past, people have made their own choices that had led to their fate. Likewise, we experience similar situations where make decisions to produce an outcome. Through the dragon symbol and an appeal to a medieval audience, my short sermon illustrates the implications of free will and serves as an allegorical lesson for modern readers.

In my RIP project, the dragon symbolizes an evil force. In order to characterize the dragon, rhetorical devices deliver its persona and aura. In the phrase

where the dragon “will soar above the midnight sky with bat-like wings,” imagery creates the scene by featuring the dragon’s physical traits and depicting it as a flying creature. To further physically describe the dragon, the simile that the dragon has “scales like a slithering snake” compares the dragon to a snake in order to emphasize how dangerous it is. Recognizing that the dragon is known as the “Destroyer,” this allusion refers to a religious reference of the Devil, while the “Creator” is known as God in Christianity.
Retrospectively, feudalism and Christianity were essential in maintaining socio-economic and religious stability.

During the fifteenth century, manorial power has waned as time progressed, empowering the peasants to establish their own short-scale system of social justice (Fifteenth-century attitudes). The dominance of villages granted peasants control of communal affairs. At the same time, challenges on faith and religion have occurred (“Church in the Middle Ages”). Driven by rebellions and unfaithfulness, the short sermon warns dissenters of of possible tragedies and also comforts the obedient. Using a passionate, cautionary, and serious tone, the narrator informs about the dragon’s wrath and how to be saved. In the RIP, the conflict between human versus unnatural creature intensify if peasants fail to make the right decision. Moreover, the purpose of the short sermon is to warn medieval peasants of the future. Due to lack of literacy and paper prints in medieval Europe, the short sermon is delivered orally and structured in medieval language. As stated in the journal article “Medieval Allegory,”

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As demonstrated in my short sermon, the rhetorical strategies is tailored to warn a medieval audience.

In the text, the targeted audience are medieval peasants because the setting mentions about a feudalist society. To warn them about the consequences of the choices we make, my RIP project exposes that free will enables us to make life-changing choices. This idea is reflected in “Free Will and Determination,” as it illustrates that “in God's mind everything is determined in advance,” and that “the active believer is wholly ignorant of this determination and therefore enjoys fully the freedom to choose” (9) to imply that the vast freedom of humanity has its own implications that change the future. Since medieval peasants have free will, they are offered a choice whether to listen to the sermon’s warning or not. After alerting the peasants, the faithful ones receive guidance and solidarity. As this online encyclopedia also argues that “[even] the existence of evil in face of the omnipotence of God is justified in terms of the supremacy of humankind's essential freedom to adopt its own goals and to choose its own course of action,” (10) in which proves that non-believers are willing to challenge their own fate and destiny despite what the prophecy

foretells.
Prospectively, the short sermon leaves a legacy and allegorical lesson to today’s individuals. In modern times,
Every day, we make a choice whether to take things seriously or to take things for granted. These choices can resolve the current conflict or cause more chaos. Therefore, we must be careful with the choices we make. While predestination warns us about the future, free will allows us to choose the course of action in spite of the consequences. However, the joys of free will allow us the freedom to choose, which may prevent us from making the right decisions. Since all decisions matter, no matter how insignificant or vital they may seem, each choice we make has an outcome that will determine the future.