Just Mercy Rhetorical Analysis

‘Just Mercy’ by Bryan Stevenson discusses topics of people who were wrongfully incarcerated and sentenced to cruel punishments. Stevenson’s goal is to show people the effects of children incarcerated in the adult system, discrimination against race and the poor, inappropriate treatment of people with mental disorders, and the overall abuse of power in prison systems. He uses his experience working with different people to strengthen the fact that they were treated unfairly and all have their backstories. Throughout ‘Just Mercy’ Bryan Stevenson uses rhetoric to help readers emotionally understand the mistreatment and injustices imposed against people from different backgrounds like Joe Sullivan and Charlie. Bryan Stevenson uses rhetoric

When Bryan Stevenson visits Joe, the cages were so small that Joe’s wheelchair could barely fit through and guards tried to force it out so violently that he started to cry (216). This experience demonstrates that even after all the struggles Joe has gone through in his childhood and over a decade of prison, he continues to be incarcerated in a cruel manner. It also shows Stevenson’s effective use of ethos because if it weren’t for his profession, people would not understand and acknowledge what Joe experienced. After years of representing adolescents, Bryan Stevenson claims that “...those who grow up poor, or in environments marked by abuse, violence, dysfunction, neglect, and the absence of living caretakers are left vulnerable to the sort of extremely poor decision-making that results in tragic violence” (222). Stevenson’s claim incorporates all the forms of rhetoric to ultimately get readers to accept the truth about teens who were convicted and charged as adults or got injustice. It specifically touches emotionally because most people understand how it is to be an adolescent and a lot have gone through problems in their