Rhetorical Analysis Of The Necessity To Speak

Rhetorical Analysis of “The Necessity to Speak” Sam Hamill writes his essay “The Necessity to Speak” not in response to a particular event, but the series of violent, harmful events that lead to a silence that must come to an end. He effectively uses different methods of persuasive argument, namely the tools of rhetoric. Hamill has the clear purpose of advocating “the articulation of one’s truest and deepest response” to a world of “lies and silence about violence” (Hamill 473); he desires a world where instead of people refusing to speak, people refuse to stay silenced. The best way to get readers to abandon their silence is through the use of ethos, pathos, and logos. The strongest persuasive technique Hamill uses is his ethos – he speaks from both experience and the profound realizations that the analyses of those

The presentation of the information Hamill uses brings clarity to the situation for readers who don’t know all of the truths that lie behind domestic violence. Facts are used moderately and appropriately throughout his piece to shed light on these truths. Domestic violence “kills more cops than dope-dealers and bank robbers combined,” (Hamill 467), and “our indifference permits… the death of 2500 women per year at the hands of their ‘lovers,’ one every three-and-a-half hours, and just as we permit a woman to be battered senseless every eighteen seconds of every day in this country” (Hamill 469). Most readers do not know this information. Facts quickly draw attention, and further establish the author’s credibility – because he knows the details of the subject of his writing, he is able to strengthen the overall effectiveness of the piece. The surprise readers derive from these facts enable Hamill to better his point that these secrets are kept hidden, that there is an incredible amount of violence in the world that is too infrequently spoken