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The Ballot Or The Bullet Rhetorical Analysis

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We know that in order to create an effective message whether on speech or paper, the three rhetorical appeals are essential. The Ballot or the Bullet by Malcolm X demonstrates all three appeals superbly. Malcolm X himself builds ethos very well, as well as displays his automatic ethos. He also appeals to logos through an ample amount of solid reasoning and several facts. In this speech pathos is extremely well present and effective. At the time of this speech, April 12, 1964, the entire nation knows who Malcolm X is. His popularity automatically provides a lot of ethos. To add to that, Malcolm X is a praised speaker amongst the African American community, and is African American himself. Since his audience is towards all Blacks and African Americans, the aforementioned traits helps build a very good amount of ethos. Malcolm uses a lot of inclusive language to increase his ethos. For example he talks about uniting for a common cause: “They attacked all of us for the same reason. All of us catch hell from the same enemy. …show more content…

Most of the time he creates pathos by evoking feelings of pride, rage, and anger. Powerful language and vocabulary is used to bring out an emotional outcry and agreement from his audience. The pathos is so well done that even one who listens to the speech decades later can still feel the power in Malcolm’s words. He demonstrates pathos in this quote: “ They don't have second-class citizenship in any other government on this Earth. They just have slaves and people who are free! Well, this country is a hypocrite! They try and make you think they set you free by calling you a second-class citizen. No, you're nothing but a 20th century slave.” This quote ties pathos and logos together. However, the main reason that pathos is evident is because he is clearly trying to make his audience angry in agreement with him by saying that in their current situation they are

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