A Rhetorical Analysis Of Ruby Wax

Rhetorical Analysis: Ruby Wax, “What’s so funny about mental illness?” According to TED.com, 1984 was the year TED was born out of the “observation of a powerful convergence among 3 fields: technology, entertainment, and design” by Richard Saul Wurman. TED has now come a long way under the entrepreneurship of Chris Anderson. He has since then changed TED from being ‘invited-only’ to being open to the public and from being national to international with the first six TED talks published in June of 2007 reaching a million views in September of the same year. TED will soon, proudly; celebrate its 31st anniversary, anticipating many more years of successful talks. “One in four people are suffering from a mental illness...so that means you, the funny looking guy with the bad teeth, would be affected…” says Ruby Wax. Her TED talk is began by using a statistic that makes the audience laugh. Being a woman that was born in Evanston, Illinois to Jewish parents, originally from Austria,

In her TED talk, Wax uses different methods to show statistical information. Most all of her information is stored in her head so when she speaks the audience she can make eye contact which implies that what she is saying is very important. By using posters and pictures, Wax can give information to people that have a hard time understanding numbers and a bunch of words. This shows that Wax can not only provide information by just talking but she can also explain by drawing and that’s a huge factor when trying to get your point across. Wax’s message is clearly explained throughout the TED talk. By using rhetorical questions, the audience and the speaker both are at the same point in which there is no answer to be said but a period of thinking about what is truly being asked. In eight minutes and fifty-eight seconds, Ruby Wax has answered her question, thousands of viewer’s questions, and audience questions. She not only answers then but has a valid explanation of