Out Of The Mouths Of Kids Rhetorical Analysis

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In the article, “Out of the Mouths of Children, Wisdom,” the author, Leonard Pitts claims that adults should appreciate the directness of children and bring an end to war. To build off of this claim, and further his argument, he uses anecdotes, vivid language, and appeal to emotion.

Anecdotes allow the reader to personally connect with the audience in a way that is virtually unparalleled. They can be used near anywhere in a piece of writing, but in this case (and in my opinion, the strongest way to use them) it was used as a hook to grab the reader’s attention. Pitt began his article with a powerful anecdote, “I am thinking of a 10-year old white boy I met in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1995...disgusted, he said, “No fair you have to do this because you’re this color and you have to do that because you’re that color. No fair.” He was speaking about his personal experience with this young boy that he met on a vacation. The reason that he used this anecdote was to support his claim of “Sometimes, the directness of children is eye-opening.” …show more content…

In this case, the form of vivid language manifests itself as figurative language. Figurative language is language that uses words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation. The obvious example of figurative language in Pitt’s essay came in the fourth paragraph when he used a metaphor to compare the civil war to an “ugly blood stain on America’s Flag.” He also used symbolism by saying (speaking on the directness of children), “It has a way of cutting through complexities the way you do cobwebs in a room that has been too long shuttered a dark.” As I said, these add emotion, and they also add a sort of powerful attitude to the essay. This combines with his powerful word choices such as encapsulate, embalm, haunting, appalled, among