“Give me Liberty or give me death,” said Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775, at the Virginan . Patrick Henry was known as a great public speaker who advocated for becoming an independent nation and protecting our rights in our newly formed country. On May 29, 1736, in Studley, Virginia, United States Henry was born. Henry was an anti-Federalist and a radical revolutionary who shaped our country’s past by giving impactful and influential speeches. In his speeches, Henry demanded independence from England.
Patrick Henry, former governor of Virginia, bravely spoke on the 23rd of March, 1775, at St. John’s Church, introducing his strategies to end the American Revolution in victory. The speech was so inspiring that it ignited a massive flame of patriotism. Americans began to greatly support his political ideology. Due to his stirring choice of words, the phrase “Give me liberty, or give me death!” impacted the listeners, making his remarkable words yet known to this date. Henry’s use of ethical appeal, logical and emotional appeals, as well as rhetorical devices, touched the audience.
On March 23, 1775 “ Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” was heard all throughout St. John's Church. These famous words were not only the use of a great speaker looking to have his voice heard, but they would have an everlasting impact on young English students studying the use of ethos, logos, and pathos. Patrick Henry used not only these rhetorical devices but also allusions, parallelism, and biblical references to bring his speech to life. In the very first sentence, Henry uses ethos to state how he is patriotic to his home but he has different views than his audience, the Virginia Convention, does. Throughout the speech, Henry uses words like “we” and “ourselves” to show that he is still with the audience, and not against them.
His use of metaphors to establish credibility, imagery to provoke fear and rage, and rhetorical questions to catch the audiences attention are just a few of the different persuasive techniques Henry used in his speech. In the end, Henry was successful and did manage to get the colonists to go against Great Britain, and made many rethink what they had previously thought or believed in. He was straightforward and daring in his speech, ending it strongly and without any doubt or hesitation: "...give me liberty or give me
Patrick Henry did this to achieve his goal of motivating the people to revolt rather than to sit and listen to the British laws. This sentence was placed last in the speech because of the emotional power it had. Also, most people remember the last lines of a speech, and as a result of this line, the audience was angered and had a strong need to revolt, which therefore achieved Henry’s purpose of getting the people to revolt. In conclusion, repetition, emotional appeals, and allusions were ways Henry described his message. Patrick Henry used these rhetorical strategies to make the colonists revolt against the British.
In this speech, Patrick criticized the war and all the unfair acts done by the British. The British claimed they were done out of love, but the American Colonists felt that inequality had been leeching into the country. In Henry’s speech, he convinced Virginia that the acts they did to achieve peace were not working and war would still happen. The solution he saw was to fight and he named ways that they needed to fight. “The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
To begin with, Henry is determined. In the battle scenes, he is willing to fight to win and defeat the Confederates. In the novel, it states, “He felt the quiver of war desire. In his ears, he heard the ring of victory” (67). At the beginning, he knew that he was going to win the battles.
Patrick Henry’s Give me liberty, or give me death! Is a great example of rhetoric used to its full potential. He does 3 major things in the speech that really emboldens the use of his rhetoric. He uses the simple three modes of persuasion. He got his point across without offending or being rude instead he decided to use logic to polite alert everyone to the crisis he was seeing.
Li 1 William Li Mr. McMurtry AP Lang & Comp, Gold 5 29 September 2014 Rhetorical Analysis: Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death Exordium: First Paragraph Introduction Show respects to opponents Narratio: Second Paragraph Rhetorical questions metaphors to invoke audience rethinking about their position stating facts Partitio: The end of second paragraph POV Confirmatio: Third Paragraph Refutatio: Fourth Paragraph Peroratio: Fifth Paragraph On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry is addressing the Virginia Convention, specifically President Peyton Randolph. He offers a solution to the patriots of Virginia to form a local militia in order to be ready to fight the British. Carrying a passionate and pleading tone, Henry urges to persuade the patriots
In the years leading up to the American Revolution, there was a tense relationship between the colonists and their British rulers. Large gatherings in the colonies to discuss the grievances caused by the actions of the British were common. Patrick Henry applies the rhetorical strategies of allusions and repetition in his “Speech in the Virginia Convention” to assert that the colonists should believe fighting for their freedom and rights is necessary and that they must fight as soon as possible. Although Henry has rather radical beliefs in comparison to the other members of the Convention, he connects with them through religious and literary allusions that are able to convince them of his assertions. In his speech, Henry alludes to