Rhetorical Devices in

Frederick Douglass

Birth of Logos
Logos = Ones reasoned argument
Exigence = The drive to speak
Purpose
Audience

Logos

Rhetoric

Definition: the art of using words in

speaking (or writing) to advance the
authors Logos so as to persuade or
influence others

We study rhetoric for two reasons:

1. to perceive how oral and written

language is at work
2. to become proficient in applying the
resources of language in our own
speech and writing

Rhetorical Devices
Definition:

specific, identifiable
language techniques used in
rhetoric.

Two types of Rhetorical devices are

1. content-centered (what)
2. form-embedded (how) Speakers
utilize form-embedded devices to
emphasize content.

Content-Centered: Pathos
Appeal

to emotion

e.g., empathy, compassion, outrage

Example:

after rolling up his sleeves, he

commenced to lay on the heavy
cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood
(amid heart-rending shrieks from her,
and horrid oaths from him) came
dripping to the floor (5).

Content-Centered: Ethos

Appeal to common values and community expectations.

Ethos reflects
Ethical values and/or the character or spirit of a culture
shared assumptions of a people
universal components of the human experience

Example:
I would sometimes say to them [the white
boys who helped Douglass learn to read], I
wish I could be as free as they would be when
they got to be men. You will be free as soon
as you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for life!
Have not I as good a right to be free as you
have? (23).

Content-Centered: Irony
A

contrast between what is expected

to happen and what actually happens

The

general characteristic of irony is

to make something understood by
expressing its opposite

Content-Centered: Irony

3 types of irony in literature:

Verbal: a writer or speaker says one thing
and means something entirely different
Dramatic: a reader or audience perceives
something that a character in the story does
not know (R&J exampleJuliet is not dead)
Situational: a writer shows a discrepancy
between the expected results of some action
or situation and the actual results (Of Mice
and Men examplefriendship/murder)

Form-Embedded: Alliteration
Repetition

of initial consonant sounds

Example:

I nerved myself up again, and started

on my way, through bogs, brier,
barefoot and bareheaded, tearing my
feet sometimes at nearly every step
(40).

Form-Embedded: Assonance
Repetition

of vowel sounds within a

sentence or across several sentences

Example:

How now brown cow?

(Repetition of the vowel sound ow)

Form-Embedded: Repetition
Repeating

of words and/or phrases

throughout a passage or text for
dramatic effect

Example:

Work, work, work, was scarcely more

the order of the day than of the night
(37-38).

Form-Embedded: Parallelism
Repetition

of a grammatical pattern

Used to emphasize and link related ideas

Adds balance, rhythm, and clarity to the
sentence
Example:

He [Covey] was always under every

tree, behind every stump, in every bush,
and at every window, on the plantation
(36).

Form-Embedded: Antithesis
Establishes

a clear, contrasting
relationship between two ideas by
joining them together, often in
parallel structure

Example:

The longest days were too short for him

and the shortest nights were too long for
him (38).

Form-Embedded:
Apostrophe

When a speaker addresses an absent person,

an abstract quality, or something non-human
as if it were present and capable of responding

Example:

My thoughts would compel utterance;

and there, with no audience but the
Almighty, I would pour out my souls
complaint, in my rude way, with an
apostrophe to the moving multitude of
ship: -- You are loosed from your
moorings, and are free (38).

Form-Embedded: Allusion
A

brief (usually indirect) reference to

a person, place, or event, or to
another literary work or passage

Example:

In coming to a fixed determination to

run away, we did more than Patrick
Henry, when he resolved upon liberty or
death (51).
Patrick Henry: I know not what course
others may take; but as for me, give me
liberty or give me death! -from Speech in the

Form-Embedded: Hyperbole
To

utilize exaggerated language to

call attention to the situation and/or
to emphasize emotion
Examples: I havent seen you in a
century! That necklace must have
cost you your lifes savings!

Form-Embedded: Oxymoron
An

expression in which two [or more]

contradictory words are put together
for dramatic effect
Examples: free slave; benevolent
slave owner; oppressive freedom;
benign dictatorship; cute ugliness

Note: An oxymoron can be clever or it can

be an error in diction; the context makes
all the difference.

Form-Embedded: Paradox
a

contradictory statement which

is nevertheless true or which
reveals a truth

Example:
It is a paradox that every dictator has
climbed to power on the ladder of free
speech. Immediately on attaining power
each dictator has suppressed all free
speech except his own. Herbert Hoover

Form-Embedded:
Compare/Contrast

To examine the similarities and differences

between two (or more) people, places,
objects, ideas, or situations. Often the
similarities are established to set up and
emphasize the differences.
Example:
There were horses and men, cattle and
women, pigs and children, all holding
the same rank in the scale of being, and
were all subjected to the same narrow
examination (27).

Form-Embedded:
Figurative Language or
Literary/Stylistic Devices
Simile:

a comparison between two

different things using like or as

Metaphor:

a direct comparison
between two unlike things. Unlike a
simile or analogy, metaphor asserts
that one thing is another thing.

Form-Embedded:
Figurative Language or
Literary/Stylistic Devices
Sensory

details/imagery: images and details

that emphasize or appeal to the five senses
(touch, taste, sight, smell, sound)

Personification:

the act of giving

human qualities to a nonhuman
thing.

Form-Embedded:
Figurative Language or
Literary/Stylistic Devices
Symbolism:

any object, person, place

or action that has a meaning in itself
and that also stands for something
larger than itself