A Rhetorical Analysis Of Royal Dixon's Essay

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In this passage by Royal Dixon, the author incorporated various persuasive techniques to build an extremely well-crafted essay, which encourages the readers’ respect toward the animals. By emphasizing the common aspects of the animals and the human, the author attempted to convey his points that animals deserves more respect. His logic and persuasiveness was strengthened through rhetorical question, criticism of the limitation of science, and emphasis on the interconnection between humans and animals. The author is mindfully persuasive from the very beginning starting off his essay by rhetorical questions. His intentional manipulation of structure of placing the rhetorical questions directly after the commonly held concept of “we cannot treat men…show more content…
He claims that the science is imperfect due to its defect of leaving out feelings. The author first discusses the descriptions of human in the scientific approach that humans are “merely a machine to be explained in terms of neurons and nervous impulses, heredity and environments and reactions to outside stimuli”. Consequently, however, he incorporated rhetorical question, “who is there who does not believe that there is more to man that that?”, provoking the empathy that humans are indeed much more valuable beings that such simplistic explanation. He attempts use this created empathy and apply this concept to the animals as well. This encouraged the readers to approach this matter not with the heads, but with hearts, changing the perception of animals not as a mere inferior creature, but as a being of intellect and feelings as humans. Although the author revealed his unsatisfaction toward mechanistic interpretation, he approaches his argument in a scientific way to counter his audience, who may still disagree with him based on the scientific fact of superiority in intelligent of humans over the animals.
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