Patrick Henry Rhetorical Devices

There are many different rhetorical devices used in famous speeches. What is a rhetorical device? A rhetorical device is a method to enhance the overall content of a speech. For example, rhetorical questions, parallelism, repetition, ethos, pathos, and logos. Patrick Henry's speech to the Virginia Convention was to persuade colonial ideas against negotiating with England, he believed that the colonists should pull away from the British ruling and create their own country. Stokely Carmichael gave a speech called, “Black Power”. This speech was given to persuade the African americans to stand up for themselves and rule their own lives. He wanted the whites to stop trying to control the African americans and believing that they were more superior. In Patrick Henry’s speech to the Virginia Convention and Stokely Carmichael’s speech, “Black Power”, there are many rhetorical devices used to persuade the audience such as, rhetorical questions, parallelism,

They are almost like repeating sentences, but written differently and are used to emphasize important ideas. In Patrick Henry’s speech he uses parallelism a couple different times, for example, “We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves.” He repeats that they have tried everything, he does this by rephrasing it in different ways each time. Stokely Carmichael also uses parallelism in his speech, he says, “ Now there is a man who’s desperately needed in this country. There is a man full of love. There is a man full of mercy. There is a man full of compassion.” Carmichael is saying that when he see Martin Luther King on tv he sees a man that will do anything for this country no matter what. That he will always be there for our country, and that is what this country needs. While in both speeches rhetorical questions and parallelism are both used, so is another device called