rhetorical analysis

In writing a rhetorical analysis, we consider whether the writer's arguments are persuasive or not persuasive

• Anaphora: Repeating a word or phrase at the beginning of successive sentences or clauses to emphasize a point. 

• Metaphor: A direct comparison between two unlike things, creating a vivid image. 

• Simile: A comparison using "like" or "as" to highlight similarities between two things. 

• Alliteration: Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words, often used for rhythm and emphasis. 

• Parallelism: Using similar grammatical structures in sentences to create balance and rhythm. 

• Antithesis: Placing opposing ideas side-by-side to highlight contrast. 

• Rhetorical question: A question posed not to seek an answer, but to make a point or provoke thought. 

• Hyperbole: An obvious exaggeration used for emphasis. 

• Personification: Giving human qualities to inanimate objects or concepts. 

• Analogy: Comparing two things to explain a complex idea by highlighting similarities.

• Thesis: The central claim and overall purpose of a work

• 2. Bias: a predisposition or subjective opinion

• 3. Call to action: Writing that urges readers to action or promote a change.

• 4. Anecdote: A short account of an interesting or humorous incident, intended to illustrate or support a point.

• 5. Analogy: A comparison to a directly parallel case; the process of drawing a comparison between two things based on a partial similarity of like features.

• 6. Idiom: An expression that means something other than the literal meanings of its individual words.

• 7. Tone: the voice and attitude the writer has chosen to project.

• 8. Mood: The overall atmosphere of a work and the mood is how that atmosphere makes a reader feel.

• 9. Antithesis: A contrast in language to bring out a contrast in ideas.

• 10. Allusion: a brief reference to a person, event, or place - real or fictitious - or to a work of art.

• 11. Generalization: When a writer bases a claim upon an isolated example or asserts that a claim is certain rather than probable.

• 12. Juxtaposition: Placing two ideas side by side or close together.

• 13. Anticipating Audience Response: The rhetorical technique of anticipating counterarguments and offering a refutation. 1

• 4. Euphemism: Substitutions of an inoffensive, indirect, or agreeable expression for a word or phrase perceived as socially unacceptable or hars

macbeth

she takes Macbeth’s letter as justification for killing the current king, Duncan, and his wife. In a scene that remains one of Shakespeare’s most chilling, Lady Macbeth prepares for King Duncan’s murder by calling on the gods to dry up her breast milk and dispel from her any ounce of feminine care and pity. And so transformed, she prevails upon her husband to commit the regicide that sets the Scottish play in motion.

Unsurprisingly, it is Duncan-gate — followed by Banquo-gate — that ultimately brings down Lady Macbeth. Her husband quickly regrets his actions, and he finds himself pursued at all points by the ghosts of his victims. Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, remains unrepentant.

hilliary

While former President Bill Clinton fended off impeachment (and no political rivals that I know of were murdered along the way), it isn’t a stretch to see parallels between the ambition and scandals that attend the Macbeths’ rise to power, and those that critics of the Clintons like to remind us all about. Even left-wing writers including author and commentator Doug Henwood and former Wall Street Journal columnist Thomas Frank, at times, suggest that ambition rather than a Democratic agenda drives Hillary Clinton’s desire to be the first female president. Add to Clinton’s ambition her insistence on preserving her privacy, and her initial unwillingness to cooperate with investigations into her work as secretary of state, and we’re left with the image of a secretive, conspiring, usurper similar to the one that brought Scotland to its knees 400 years earlier.

overall

As with most polemical comparisons, this one is more apparent than it is real. Lady Macbeth’s actions are those of someone without a legitimate claim to the throne of Scotland. And, as noted above, Shakespeare is at pains to point out that Lady Macbeth is acting against the natural and ordained order of things: In conspiring to kill Duncan, she rejects not only divine right of kings, but also her natural nurturing role of a woman. While Lady Macbeth’s lines are almost exclusively devoted to murderous scheming, Clinton’s public appearances, for the most part, consist of policy discussions. Then again, Clinton’s actions are those of a woman legally elected and appointed to public office.

Clinton’s critics suggest that — like Lady Macbeth — she’s overreaching, aspiring to a presidency that her husband has already held and should, by rights, go to someone else. This is precisely the sort of outdated thinking that Clinton has been running against since the 2008 Democratic primary. Nor is any ambition on her part inappropriate or misplaced: She’s a remarkably qualified candidate, having been a senator and secretary of state, in addition to first lady (a qualification to which no other presidential candidate has ever been able to lay claim). Arguably, being elected president represents the next logical step in a public career that has spanned more than two decades.

juxtaposition- placing two ideas together

allusion- a reference to a person or higher being

mood- feelings of words

analogy- comparing