Ethos In Ted Talk

Rape and sexual assault are serious situations that can change a person’s life, both victim and attacker, leaving them with feelings of denial, regret, sadness, anger, etc. Often, people think they will never be able to receive closure and peace once they have been attacked. But speakers Thordis Elva and Tom Stranger, in the TED Talk, prove that to be incorrect. Through their speech, Elva and Stranger are able to speak up about their personal experience with rape, creating strong and meaningful arguments for the audience to hear. By using appeal to ethos, irony and parallelism, they are able to express how it is possible to resolve the pain that comes from sexual assault. When appealing to ethos, Stranger establishes how he is a normal

By establishing his background, Stranger is able to connect with the audience members. Elva uses appeal to ethos by establishing the relationship her and Stranger had, like everyone else did in their teenage years: “I was 16 and in love for the first time. Going to the christmas dance together…”(01:30). By including this in the speech, she shows how a normal person, such as herself and audience members, can be the victims of sexual assault. The incorporation of irony in the speech amplifies how sexual assault can happen to anyone, anywhere and any time. Elva includes irony to describe how “Tom wasn’t an armed lunatic; he was my boyfriend. And it didn’t happen in a seedy alleyway, it happened in my own bed” (02:51), emphasizing how rape can happen in deceiving ways that may not seem real. Lastly, Stranger includes parallelism in his part of the speech to highlight how the blame of rape is often on the woman, the victim. “Far too often, the responsibility is attributed to female survivors...far too often, the denial and running leaves all parties at a great distance from truth”(15:56). Including “far too often” repeatedly creates a stronger argument of how it is important to find closure from sexual assault so the people involved can resolve