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Aung Suu Kyi: Rhetorical Analysis

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Paragraph #3: “The students were protesting...in cupped hands.”
In this paragraph, Aung Suu Kyi discusses the motivations of the student protests in Burma, as well as the resulting explosion of support for these demonstrations. Kyi analyzes the movement as a whole, reasoning that it was a representation of the rarely-acknowledged issues of the population, using fairly static syntactical structure. She then describes why people were attracted to it. Kyi uses phrases that appeal to pathos, stating that Burma’s government “deprives the present of meaningfulness” and “held out no hope for the future.” In addition, by creating a contrast between an image of “prosperity” and the underlying fear planted by the totalitarian administration, she demonstrates …show more content…

She states one of the basic principles of the United Nations, then challenges corrupt governments and interest groups on their prioritizing of profit and power over the people themselves, as well as establishing a contrast between the ideal situation and reality. Kyi uses matter-of-fact, pointed language, for example, describing oppressors as “powerful and unprincipled [people] ...dominating the weak and helpless,” to support her claim. In terms of diction, she juxtaposes politics and ethics to emphasize the need for their coexistence. Her subsequent description of the United Nations’ policy on human rights, “the...freedoms to which all human beings regardless of race, nationality, or religion are entitled,” uses a fairly unusual word order; the main verb is moved to the end of the sentence in order to stress the idea that all human beings should be free of coercion or discrimination. Kyi’s citation of the United Nations may add an appeal to ethos as well. She definitely appeals to pathos by stating that “victims of oppression must draw on their own inner resources...as members of the human family.” The idea of “drawing on inner resources” essentially the goal of her argument: to inspire courage and strength in a world shaped heavily by fear. In addition, the use of the term “human family” has the connotation of unity, which she also somewhat promotes as a solution to

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