Rhetoric In The Article By Ayn Rand And Cartoon By Herblock

Rhetoric is prevalent in everyday sights; from a billboard to a television commercial, the literary skill is used to influence the intended audience. Rhetoric has been important and influential in literature throughout history. Due to the historic event of the first man landing on the moon, many articles and cartoons filled with pride and excitement while others had more of a negative tone were published. Regardless of their tone, the rhetoric was present and necessary in all of the published items; whether the publications were successful is another story. The rhetoric, in the article by Ayn Rand and cartoon by Herblock, will be analyzed for their how the speaker, audience, and subject impacts the text, the appeal to ethos, logos and pathos,

Block was an American author and cartoonist whose cartoon, Transported, was in the Washington Post. Block’s intended audience was everyone on Earth without a doubt. Block’s cartoon depicts a man up on the partially light crescent moon watching television with his back to Earth, which is lower than the moon, covered in dark clouds which have the words ‘war’ ‘poverty’ and ‘prejudice’. The man on the moon is so intensely focusing on the television, it looks like he is afraid to miss a single commercial. Since all of the man’s attention is all focused on the television while he is one the moon, he is, literally and figuratively turning is back on the world, which contains much larger issues. Block uses ethos and pathos in his cartoon to get his audience to discover the purpose he is putting out there. Block uses ethos by showing the issues on Earth are more important than the moon landing by making the clouds with the words in them alone are larger than the moon and the man sitting on it. This is an effective use of ethos because what is happening at home should be the number one priority, but some are too busy being entertained to see that has displayed in Block’s cartoon. Pathos is in the piece in the shading of everything in the picture and the sizing of everything. The adequate light being given by the moon is nothing compared to the mass of darkness surrounding the Earth. The dark letters and shading shows the seriousness as well as the fear that should be felt when being surrounded with war, poverty, and prejudice. Herblock is successful in his work of trying to get his audience to come to realize that the moon landing was nothing but a distraction, but not everyone will completely understand his appeals to ethos and pathos because of the in depth thinking