Birth Of A Nation Rhetorical Analysis

The idea of visual perception plays a vital role in how we as humans view the world. Because how we perceive things determines if we like or dislike them. This idea of perception plays a big role in the 1915 film, Birth of a Nation, by director D.W. Griffith. In this film the viewer relies on their senses to infer and understand the many rhetorical contexts that are present in this loosely based historical film. While watching this film the viewer will find themselves making connections to certain historical events through the rhetorical images and words that appear on the screen. The first of those rhetorical images that I came across while watching this film was the director’s use of the historical topic’s. This film came out at a time

Even compared to today’s movie industry, Griffith is able to express many different and conflicting views through his great use of visual story telling. To me, the purpose of why the director chose to go with certain visual signals throughout the movie was confusing at first. But as the movie was coming to an end it all started to click, and I began to understand what Griffith was trying to explain to me as one of the members of the audience through his rhetorical images. The first conclusion I was able to draw was that the director was a master of using visual images. Whether it was setting up the scene or explaining certain actions done by characters, Griffith does it all. The second trait I was able to notice from the visual images was that the director sets scenes up for many different visual representations among audience

My favorite example the director used in this film was when he showed Elsie Stoneman (Lillian Gish) with a cold, expressionless face standing next to the bird cage. This visual in my opinion explains how the film is drastically changing and is about to come to a climax and change how the audience views the movie. With this scene the purpose of the movie is fully revealed to the audience. This scene as a whole, to me represents rhetorically how the white race is not trapped by the black race yet but are very close. If she were to be in the cage that would represent that no matter what the whites did the blacks would reign supreme over them. But since she is out of the cage the whites still have a chance to regain control. The KKK is their last saving