A Rhetorical Analysis of Lockdown by Evans D. Hopkins According to the Webster Dictionary, rhetoric is defined as the art of speaking or writing effectively. Rhetoric is made up of three separate appeals that can be used individually or collectively in an attempt to persuade a reader. Ethos is the credibility and qualifications of the speaker or author. Pathos is the author's use of emotions and sympathy to urge the audience to agree with his or her standpoint. And lastly, logos is applying sound reasoning (logic) to attract the typical ideas of the audience and to prove the author's point of view. "Lockdown" by Evans D. Hopkins is a fine example of an author using these appeals to persuade his audience. Hopkins uses of the three appeals are easy to locate and relate with throughout the entire passage. He undoubtedly uses rhetoric to try and keep his audiences focus and to persuade them to feel the way he does about the treatment of prisoners. We can identify and trust that he is making reasonable assertions because he was a prisoner and went through actual lockdowns. The fact that Hopkins was an actual prisoner proves his credibility to provide evidence for his thoughts. Hopkins proves his credibility (ethos) right away in his opening sentence and also gains the trust of his audience. "I know something serious has happened when I wake up well before dawn to discover two guards wearing armored vests and riot helmets taking a head count" (298). As he goes on to express that this is not the first time he has encountered a lockdown. "I have endured lockdowns in buildings with little or no heat, lockdowns during which authorities cut off the plumbi... ... middle of paper ... ...s as it made his persuasion more believable because of his knowledge. Hopkins makes another attempt to earn the confidence of his audience with logos and talks about his beliefs on deterrence from crime. "With violence affecting so many lives, one can understand the desire driven by fear to lock away young male offenders. But considering their impoverished, danger filled lives, I wonder whether the treat of being locked up for decades can really deter them from crime" (305). Hopkins is definitely not our stereotypical prisoner. Most generally, our view of prisoners is not someone who has this profound use of wording and this broad sense of knowledge.
Muhlhausen, D. B., Dyer, C. C., McDonough, J. R., Nadlemann, E., & Walters, R. (2006). Do prisons protect public safety? In C. Hanrahan (Ed.), Opposing Viewpoints: America’s prisons (pp. 16-48). Detroit: Bonnie Szumski.
... of public humiliation or being locked up for year. There is also a mention of how non-violent criminals are being affected by prison. This affects the reader emotional aspect toward the argument because it make’s the reader have sympathy causing them to lean toward Jacoby’s view. This is called an appeal to emotion and is not generally a good thing to have in a credible paper.
He cares about people and believes that the safety of individuals is decreasing because criminals are not punished effectively by imprisonment and that some even receive a “sign of manhood” from going to prison (1977). Additionally, he is upset that the ineffective system is so expensive. His concern for his audience’s safety and his carefully argued grounds, which he uses to support his claim, create a persona of an intelligent person of goodwill. Jeff Jacoby does an excellent job informing his audience that the current criminal justice system is not any more humane than the physical forms of punishment used in the past.
Throughout his novel, Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire, author and professor Robert Perkinson outlines the three current dominant purposes of prison. The first, punishment, is the act of disciplining offenders in an effort to prevent them from recommitting a particular crime. Harsh punishment encourages prisoners to behave because many will not want to face the consequences of further incarceration. While the purpose of punishment is often denounced, many do agree that prison should continue to be used as a means of protecting law-abiding citizens from violent offenders. The isolation of inmates, prison’s second purpose, exists to protect the public. Rehabilitation is currently the third purpose of prison. Rehabilitation is considered successful when a prisoner does n...
Talking about Language and Rhetorics, which in turn means using lanuage to communicate persuasively. Rhetorics date all the way back to the fifth Century in athens, Greece. There is 3 types of Rhetorics that are known. The First being Logos, which is the logic behind an argument. Logos tries to persuade an audience using logical arguments and supportive evidence. The next is Pathos, using Emotional Apeal in terms of persuading someone or an audience. Then there is Ethos, using moral competence to persuade the audience to trust in what they are saying is true.
At one point in history punishment and incapacitation were seen as the only logical ways to respond to crime (Pollock, 2010: 318). The majority of people used a religious perspective when viewing criminals. Criminals were believed to be sinners with no ability to change their behavior (Pollock, 2010: 318). From early on punishment was a topic that demanded an intellectual understanding. Two major criminologists from the Classical School were Jeremy...
Assaults on correctional officers in prison are not uncommon. Aggressive inmates need to be kept under control, which can sometimes cause fights between themselves and the officers. According to Stephen C. Light, a graduate from SUNY Plattsburgh “The sample consists of the 694 incidents of assaults by prisoners on offices that were reported to have occurred in 31 New York State prisons” (Light, 1991). The amount of assaults on officers demonstrates how violent inmates can get. Over 600 assaults in 31 different NY State prisons, displays one of the many hardships and challenges that come with being a corrections officer. Prison cells and housing areas are two places where prisoners spend most of their time. Those areas are the ones with the most frequent outbreak of assaults occur (Light, 1991). However, there is more to the assaults on officers than just how many there are and the location of where they
The rhetorical triangle is a technique used to utilize and compose thoughts in a way that appeal to and persuade an audience. The three components that base these persuasions are pathos (emotions), ethos (creditability), and logos (reasoning). Many creditable people have used the rhetorical triangle in their speeches showing this technique to be effective. Abraham Lincoln, the nation’s sixteenth President, is a perfect example showing that when effectively used the power and application of the rhetorical triangle can positively alter thoughts and feelings of an audience.
He persuades the audience by using verbal irony and statistics. When he first mentions prison, he uses verbal irony towards the subject to express his true attitude towards imprisonment by saying that locking people in cages is more humane than punishing them physically (197). This statement is ironic because he actually believes that imprisonment is a worse punishment than corporal punishment but says that it is more humane to ridicule the opposing argument. This irony serves its purpose of telling the audience that prison is
Rhetoric is the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, and its uses the figures of speech and other compositional techniques. It’s designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience.
Chapman’s research shows evidence of 211 stabbings taking place in three years at one prison in Louisiana. Bloody riots, rape, robberies, and exhortation are just a few of the everyday occurrences that can be expected when entering a penitentiary.
“The history of correctional thought and practice has been marked by enthusiasm for new approaches, disillusionment with these approaches, and then substitution of yet other tactics”(Clear 59). During the mid 1900s, many changes came about for the system of corrections in America. Once a new idea goes sour, a new one replaces it. Prisons shifted their focus from the punishment of offenders to the rehabilitation of offenders, then to the reentry into society, and back to incarceration. As times and the needs of the criminal justice system changed, new prison models were organized in hopes of lowering the crime rates in America. The three major models of prisons that were developed were the medical, model, the community model, and the crime control model.
Clark (2016) suggests that rhetoric isn’t limited to oral communication, but currently has a permanent foothold in written works: magazine or newspaper excerpts, novels, and scientific reports. Not only written
“It’s really clear that the most effective way to turn a nonviolent person into a violent one is to send them to prison,” says Harvard University criminologist James Gilligan. The American prison system takes nonviolent offenders and makes them live side-by-side with hardened killers. The very nature of prison, no matter people view it, produces an environment that is inevitably harmful to its residents.
Rhetoric is the art of effective speaking or writing, and persuasion. Most people use rhetoric numerous of times in their everyday life without their concern or knowing.