Rhetorical Devices In Just Mercy

Rhetorical Analysis of Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy Bryan Stevenson, a young and impressionable lawyer, whose work with Southern Prisoners Defense Committee (SPDC), opened Stevenson’s eyes to the defenselessness of death row inmates. Coupled with his own experience with bias and unfair treatment, Stevenson wrote a book based on the lives of those he helped- and attempted to help. Slightly shadowed by his own bias, Just Mercy was an inciting piece of literature of the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020. Writing a book made his use of rhetoric timeless. Utilizing Kairos, Aristotle’s rhetorical devices, and fallacies, Stevenson appropriately spread awareness of the unfair treatment of colored men, poor women and children, and individuals with

Speaking to the problem now arising in Alabama, those once with the comfort of a spared life, are now facing down the barrel of our justice system, alone. Stevenson illustrates those with no family support. He is effectively using Kairos, setting the scene to announce the overall problem happening in Alabama. Portraying Bryan Stevenson and EJI being their last shred of hope. Stevenson is not only identifying the problem, but his tone also alerts his readers to the urgency of those on death row. All throughout the book there is an intentional constant flow of information. Story to story, a little information of each. Not with the intention to confuse but with the purpose of illuding to rapid action. Stevenson appeals to the urgency on page 17 by exclaiming he has represented “abused and neglected children” whom then continued to suffer in adult prisons, women whose mass incarceration has increased in “640 percent,” the mentally disabled whose illnesses are to blame for their poor actions. And more who were addicted to drugs, those seeking redemption, and the victims whom

At the very beginning of the book, the author used two fallacies, false dilemma and red herring. “…Search for a ‘post-graduation plan’ led me to law school mostly because other graduate programs required you to know something about your field of study to enroll; law schools, it seemed, didn’t require you to know anything,” (4). This is a false dilemma because it is a comparison of two extremes, something, or nothing. Stevenson wrote this sentence conveying the idea that he just fell into the lawyering profession because of its convenience. I believe the intention of this piece is to speak to the incompetence of the justice system. Suggesting that any regular joe and begin in the career of law. The next fallacy was the use of red herring. “We’ve given up on rehabilitation, education, and services for the imprisoned because providing assistance to the incarcerated is apparently too kind and compassionate,” (15) The strategy is red herring because the ending was a distraction and concluded to a false statement of Americans not being kind or compassionate enough. This rhetorical device was used to shame those not actively involved in helping those in the system. It was willfully utilized by Stevenson because this statement makes the reader want to oppose the idea of being a part of the problem, thus, being very effective. Each fallacy opened the idea