Douglass adopts a style of righteous indignation in this speech to condemn American slavery. Righteous indignation indicates that Douglass intends to criticize the current state of affairs by drawing on moralistic language choices and metaphors.

1 Rhetorical analysis section example Introduction My main interpretive argument in this analysis is that Douglass adopts a style of righteous indignation in this speech to condemn American slavery. Righteous indignation indicates that Douglass intends to criticize the current state of affairs by drawing on moralistic language choices and metaphors. According to my analysis of the rhetorical situation, Douglass needed to defend his recent turn in favor of the American Constitution. Part of this turn is defending aspects of American identity in light of abolitionist critiques that the United States is irredeemable. Douglass is able to bring to the forefront the philosophical, religious, and familial aspects of American identity to develop his strategic style. I divide the analysis, thus, into three main components: (1) Douglass’s focus on abstract principles as sources of condemnation, (2) his use of familial metaphors, and (3) the religious language and imagery in the speech. Righteous indignation through abstract American principles The first strategy I highlight is Douglass’s construction of abstract philosophical principles. These principles enable Douglass to find a common foundation of American identity to use as a source of critique against slavery. This becomes part of his style of righteous indignation because Douglass is able to construct himself as upholding sacred national principles while condemning slaveholders for violating said principles. The best evidence of this interpretation comes when Douglass spends the first third of the speech lauding the Founding Fathers. Under the pretense of celebrating the Fourth of July and honoring the nation’s accomplishments, Douglass recounts the founding of the nation and the triumph of the founders. Rather than tell a concrete narrative of events, he reflects abstractly on 2 the founders’ virtues as “brave” and “great” men. He continually references their fight against “oppression,” “slavery,” and “tyranny” in order to defend “justice,” “liberty,” and “freedom.” He recounts that the founders acted “under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism” and had “a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom.” Douglass frames these principles as laying “deep the corner-stone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you.” Abstraction is the key to this part of the stylistic strategy. In the mini-lecture, Dr. Rountree explained that abstraction could be used to persuasive effect. The example he gave was to keep an audience from visualizing a specific idea, but in this case, abstraction is also used to create a common foundation between Douglass and the framers of the Constitution. This helps Douglass overcome a very real constraint: Douglass was an escaped slave, and some of the founders were slave-owners. His abstraction obscures the differences on specific ideas and allows Douglass to use the framers as a rhetorical resource. In other words, he transforms the founders from specific historical men with concrete grievances against Britain to amorphous patriotic figures who defended abstract principles. In sum, Douglass’s creation of abstract American principles, such as freedom and liberty, empowered him to draw on something foundational about American identity as a source of critique and righteous indignation. In the next section, I show how Douglass transformed another key value of American identity to his advantage: family. Righteous indignation through familial metaphors The second strategy I will highlight is Douglass’s use of familial metaphors. Much like the way Douglass uses abstract principles, he draws on the values of family as a source of critique and 3 indignation. In the mini-lecture, Dr. Rountree talked about archetypal metaphors as tapping into powerful, elemental forces that are universal to the human experience. While the associations that go along with family are somewhat unique to Douglass’s times, the familial metaphor itself is timeless and fits as archetypal. Below, I show how Douglass leverages the familial metaphor to create an implied obligation to oppose slavery. In the last section, I mentioned that Douglass spent the first third of the speech lauding the accomplishments of the American founders. At the same time that he is celebrating their accomplishments in the speech, he begins to build up the familial metaphor as central to the speech. This begins as a familial metaphor between the colonists and Britain at the time of the American Revolution. He refers to Great Britain as exercising “parental prerogatives” in imposing constraints on its “colonial children.” The metaphor then shifts to consider Americans in 1852 as “children” to the Founding Fathers of the country. This is not a mere turn-of-phrase. Rather than refer to them as “Founding Fathers,” he repeatedly just refers to them as “your fathers.” The familial metaphor that Douglass builds up also comes with entailments—once contemporary Americans are framed as “children,” they take on the obligations of children. This is the primary rhetorical work of the metaphor, to create an obligation from the American “children” to do justice by their “fathers.” Douglass says explicitly in one passage that “You have no right to enjoy a child’s share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence.” As children of the Founding Fathers, Americans in Douglass’s time had an obligation to continue their work and uphold the principles of freedom against tyranny. The archetypal metaphor of family helps construct that obligation more sharply, to 4 recreate a patriotic obligation as a familial one. Overall, the familial metaphor reinforces the style of righteous indignation that Douglass creates throughout the speech. He uses the familial metaphor to extend his valorizing of the founders and construct a more powerful obligation. Slavery supporters’ failure to live up to the ideals of the founders is not merely a failure of reverence towards patriotic figures but instead a failure to live up to the obligations of children to honor their parents. In the next section, I show how Douglass continues to create a style of indignation by invoking obligations towards religion. Righteous indignation through religious language and imagery The third and final strategy I analyze is Douglass’s invocation of religious language and imagery in the speech. This language and imagery neatly transitions from construing Americans’ obligation to ancestral “fathers” to framing their obligation to a heavenly father. While this analysis is not about ethos explicitly, the use of religious language calls upon Douglass’s identity as a preacher and invokes a uniquely religious variation on the style of righteous indignation that characterizes Douglass’s rhetoric. Religious language and imagery is prevalent throughout the speech. Douglass devotes an entire section to a discussion of Christianity and God. A word cloud I generated from the speech features “God” prominently, and indeed, it appears a whopping 27 times in the speech. For example, Douglass references Passover, scenes from Exodus, the children of Abraham and Jacob, and even quotes a verse from Matthew 23 about the scribes and Pharisees. Christianity is prevalent throughout the speech. The prevalence of religious language allows Douglass to call attention to Americans’ identities as Christian believers, to bring those identities to the forefront, and then transform 5 Christianity and God as a source of condemnation. The American church, in particular, Douglass accuses of being sacrilege by using the Bible to defend slavery. His indignation is clear when he says that “they strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form.” It’s not merely that they do not adhere to their religious convictions— defenders of slavery defile the very religion they profess to believe. The religion ceases to be “that pure and undefiled religion which is from above.” The invocation of religious language and imagery caps off the trifecta of defilements that slave-owners have committed against the principles of the Republic, against familial obligations, and finally against Christianity and God. Douglass uses these to create multiple sources not just for anger but for moralistic anger that stems from foundational values. Rhetorical analysis section example Introduction • Introductory paragraph goes here o Clearly state and explain interpretive argument (thesis) o Connect the argument to the rhetorical situation (how did the strategy address the needs of the rhetorical situation) o Preview sections of the analysis Analysis section #1 (1st component of the rhetorical strategy) • Introductory paragraph o Explain the component of the strategy. What is it? How does it work? o Connect it to the broader thesis o Connect it to what you’ve learned in the mini-lectures or other parts of the class • Summary/narrative paragraph o Most readers are not familiar with your speech. This paragraph catches them up with what is happening in the key moment in the speech that you want to analyze. • Analysis paragraph o Deconstruct how textual evidence from this part of the speech connects to the component you have identified and tries to frame the speech for the audience o When in doubt, ask the question: What does this part of the speech try to highlight? What does it try to downplay or conceal? How do I know? • Conclusion/transition paragraph o What is the main takeaway from this section of the analysis? How does it reinforce the thesis? o Then transition to the next part of the analysis. “In the next section, I will…” Analysis section #2 (2nd component of the rhetorical strategy) • Introductory paragraph o Explain the component of the strategy. What is it? How does it work? o Connect it to the broader thesis o Connect it to what you’ve learned in the mini-lectures or other parts of the class • Summary/narrative paragraph o Most readers are not familiar with your speech. This paragraph catches them up with what is happening in the key moment in the speech that you want to analyze. • Analysis paragraph o Deconstruct how textual evidence from this part of the speech connects to the component you have identified and tries to frame the speech for the audience o When in doubt, ask the question: What does this part of the speech try to highlight? What does it try to downplay or conceal? How do I know? • Conclusion/transition paragraph o What is the main takeaway from this section of the analysis? How does it reinforce the thesis? o Then transition to the next part of the analysis. “In the next section, I will…” Analysis section #3 (3rd component of the rhetorical strategy) • Introductory paragraph o Explain the component of the strategy. What is it? How does it work? o Connect it to the broader thesis o Connect it to what you’ve learned in the mini-lectures or other parts of the class • Summary/narrative paragraph o Most readers are not familiar with your speech. This paragraph catches them up with what is happening in the key moment in the speech that you want to analyze. • Analysis paragraph o Deconstruct how textual evidence from this part of the speech connects to the component you have identified and tries to frame the speech for the audience o When in doubt, ask the question: What does this part of the speech try to highlight? What does it try to downplay or conceal? How do I know? • Conclusion/transition paragraph o What is the main takeaway from this section of the analysis? How does it reinforce the thesis? o Then transition to the next part of the analysis. “In the next section, I will…” …
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