Rhetorical Triangle Essay

The relationships between the elements of the rhetorical triangle are crucial to forming an effective argument. If the rhetor understands these relationships and masterfully ties their text to other texts, their audience makes connections between them. The elements of one text can fuel the argument of the other. The rhetor is more likely to persuade their audience if they implement this strategy, and the more connections the audience makes between texts, the more successful the argument will be. This can be demonstrated using the order of an episode of a TV show and a commercial: the audience links the purpose of the episode to the commercial, which in turn develops its argument. The episode I will use for this example is from a show called

In the commercial, the captain had to obtain a treasure hidden underwater. The hero, a diver, had to face many obstacles to reach it, and the commercial ended with a sunken ship almost crushing the hero, who determinedly uncovered the treasure and escaped. The connection between this commercial and the episode is striking; the audience, or the kids who watch Cartoon Network, are the same for both, and the episode’s lesson makes commercial more effective. Since the goal of the Lego Company is to make kids want to buy this set, they implement the values the kids just learned in Steven Universe to make a more convincing argument. The kids see the hero in the Lego commercial overcoming obstacles to achieve their goal and now know that they can also be heroes, even if they have flaws. Their desire to brave this perilous journey to the depths is fueled by the lessons they learned from Jamie and Steven, and the Lego Company is more likely to persuade them that their product is worth buying. This tactic is implemented in the other commercials, as well; in a commercial for a Star Wars video game, kids excitedly tell the audience how awesome it is to be able to overpower the barriers presented in the game in order to beat the boss. The audience members relate to the speakers, who are just like them, and now understand the message, which was laid out for them in the episode. Because of this, the commercial