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Patrick Henry's Rhetorical Analysis: Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death

489 Words2 Pages

Jackie Rios
Ms. Thompson
AP Language and Composition
21 October 2015
Rhetorical Analysis: “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”
In Patrick Henry’s speech, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”, he addresses the president at the time and all patriots in a motivational and persuasive tone, to act at once against the British in order to as a result gain their rightful freedom.
Henry begins his argument by speaking directly to the president and also states his belief in patriotism, thus creating credibility to himself. Aside from this, Henry gets straight to the point to why he is speaking and declares the issue that is bothering everyone, “For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the great responsibility which we hold to God and …show more content…

From there on, Henry tries his best convince the people that there is nothing left to do, but stand up and fight the war that is to come that is inevitable.
Henry ends his motivating speech with a quote that shows parallelism: “give me liberty or give me death” (5). Henry express the beauty of life and how it should not be up for a sell, when once your life is bought you must work endless hours in whatever the person who bought you desires to make you work at with chains that hold you down. He finishes off by stating how he doesn’t know what others will do, but he know one thing for sure and that is fighting for liberty and if he can’t, then he might as well not live in a world where there is no

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