Rhetorical Analysis Project Ideas

Most of the samples on the website of possible ideas for a rhetorical analysis (www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html) are speeches of some kind given by a political, religious, or social leader. It makes sense to start from those ideas considering our rhetorical analyses are supposed to analyze how a piece “works to persuade its audience.” The purpose for those kinds of formal addresses is almost always to do just that: convince the audience of one thing or another. Perhaps to support a cause, condemn a recent social issue, or think in a certain way. I think I could definitely choose a speech of Martin Luther King Jr.’s and analyze his rhetorical strategies in an effort to persuade his audience of the urgent necessity for civil rights. His speeches are full of ethos, logos, and pathos.

However, there are other, less obvious pieces to analyze for rhetoric. In my AP Language and Composition class that I took junior year of high school, we spent most of our time writing rhetorical analyses. Many times we looked at historical literature such as Virginia Woolf, Benjamin Franklin, and George Orwell. I think this angle would interest me more because the authors seek to persuade their audiences in a more subtle way. The first thing they are concerned with is their style. I guess I find a rhetorical analyses of literature (that still seeks to persuade) more creative, and thus more intriguing.

One of my favorite pieces on which I wrote a rhetorical analysis was “A Hanging” by George Orwell. The piece tells the (true) story of a Burmese man’s execution under British Imperialists. George Orwell witnessed this execution first hand and it disgusted him, so he wrote the piece in an attempt to make readers realize how imperialism warps humans’ natural order. Obviously, I will not analyze this piece again (I wish!), but it gives me ideas of places to look. I think an analysis of work by Martin Luther (the instigator of the Protestant Reformation in Europe) would be interesting. The context for anything Martin Luther wrote would vastly differ from any modern examples of persuasion.

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