What Are The Rhetorical Devices Used In The Gettysburg Address

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In America during the Civil War, people were killing their brothers based on their allegiance. Everybody during that time did not believe that the effects it may have after the war was over. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, knew about these effects, through enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke. Lincoln speech “Gettysburg Address” not only gives hope to the union soldiers but, something much more. He believes that the union will win the war against the south because of the dedication that both the government and the people have done through the use of allusion, ethos and antithesis One of Lincoln’s rhetorical device is allusion that explains to us how the people should trust the government if they share similar beliefs. In the speech it states “ Four …show more content…

Through this the phrase “ Four score and seven years ago” means eighty-seven years ago from the writing of the gettysburg address, which contradicts the time of the writing of the declaration of independence.This is very important because it shows us that the bible helped this speech made it become what it is today through the use of allusion by the quote. Another quote from the same speech states “That we are dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”(Abraham Lincoln 1). Through allusion, this shows us that everybody regardless of where they came from are all equal under the declaration of independence that enforced equality during the revolutionary war. Furthermore, through the declaration of independence this reflected the ideas of the enlightenment which was the ideas of personal freedom and equality . This relates back to the original quote because the phrase“proposition that all men are created equal” shows that the people are all equal and all of them created the government as they see fit through the freedom they were given. Therefore the

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