Writing of John Grisham

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Rhetorical Analysis

John Grisham uses personal experience and cause and effect strategies for emotional appeals or also known as pathos to show the audience how movies greatly influence people and their decisions.

Rather on the news or a friend telling you of a murder, you feel sympathy towards the person who died and the family of the victim. There’s only so much you can feel about the murder, only because you either don’t know the victim or you don’t know all the details of what happened when you hear about the person and who they were before they died you start to connect, just like a character in a book that you slowly develop in your mind.

“I didn’t know much about him back then, just that he was soft spoken, exceedingly polite, always ready with a smile and a warm greeting.”(1) Grisham gives the background of Bill Savage, only to give the readers a sense of who Bill Savage was a nice person who you sympathetic towards. Grisham wrote that statement to get the readers attention. He didn’t want to just say Bill Savage was a good guy, because the statement is too plain. He adds more background that information for a reason. That reason was to show Bill Savage was a wonderful person and to make the reader feel sympathetic for what had happen and to make you want the murderer to serve their punishment.

“Bill Savage was not the kind of person to create ill will or maintain enemies”(1). Everyone has an enemy, that’s why Grisham says “maintain”. I take from this quote that once people got to know Savage they befriended him. Grisham is saying this to show the reader that Bill couldn’t have been killed by people he knows. “The townspeople of Hernado were stunned”(1). He is liked by everyone or else Grisham wouldn’t have said it that way. Bill was killed by a complete stranger.

“He was active in local affairs, a devoted Christian and solid citizen who believed in public service and always ready to volunteer”(1) .Ben had no rhyme or reason to murder Bill because Grisham demonstrates how bill has no character traits to have any enemies therefore the murder was done in cold blood. All these quotes which are background information and personal experience strategy are given so the reader has a sense of who Bill was and a sense of who Ben was a way of showing how effective background information is to a reader.

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