In The Rattler the speaker’s rhetorical strategy is to use pathos to make the audience feel sympathy for his/her actions and to also use logos to give good reasons for his/her actions. The speaker is justified in killing the rattlesnake because he/she was protecting the lives of others while being courageous at the same time.
In the third paragraph the author uses pathos when he/she says: “But I reflected that there were children, dogs, horses at the ranch, as well as men and women like shod; my duty, plainly, was to the kill the snake.” In this section the speaker was only doing what he or she believed was the right thing to do. He/She was only thinking of the dangers this vicious creature could cause to others when he/she said, “I reflected that there were
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The speaker is also justified in killing the snake because he/she was threatened after making the first attempt into killing the rattlesnake, but he only tried to kill the snake because it would be an inconvenience to anyone or any animal on the ranch. Some people may argue that if the speaker just kept themselves and didn’t bother the snake everything would be ok, but think about it this way say you were in the speaker's shoes and you decided to keep walking instead of trying to kill the snake. Later on that day you find out that an animal or person was harmed by the same rattlesnake that you could’ve chosen to kill earlier, but you didn’t. Wouldnt you feel guilty because you could’ve had the power of preventing the whole situation from happening if you decided to annihilate the rattlesnake earlier?
In conclusion the authors use of rhetorical strategy shows that he/she was justified in killing the rattlesnake; s/he did it to save the lives of someone who could've been hurt in the future-- by this virulent