Fallacies In Speech 'Six Minutes And 20 Seconds' By Emma Gonzalez

951 Words2 Pages

Fallacies in Speech Often, when a public speaker is addressing his argument, fallacies are made. No speech is immune to this literary error and even some of history’s most famous speeches contain fallacies. Speeches such as world renowned “I Have a Dream” by Martin Luther King Jr. and the recent, yet equally astonishing and impactful, “Six Minutes and 20 Seconds” speech by Emma Gonzalez are great examples of works containing the fallacy of appeal to emotion. Because of the fact that both of these speeches are regarding a controversial topic, the creation of this type of fallacy is most convenient to the speaker. Fallacies are occasionally made unintentionally, yet they are also a clever and almost subliminal way of getting the argumenter’s …show more content…

In her speech, the appeal to emotion fallacy was the main character. Because gun violence, especially regarding kids, is a sensitive topic, she made this fallacy in order to allure the audience to siding to her statement and understanding her point of view by aiming to their heart. She begins her speech by stating “17 of our friends were taken from us, 15 more were injured, and everyone, absolutely everyone in the Douglas community was forever altered.” Gonzalez talks about the sense of abnormality and sadness that will forever shadow the city and mentions that her friends were taken from her. This gives the audience the idea of unjustful death which will be what the whole speech is about. Later in her performance, she once again makes this fallacy. “Six feet into the ground, six feet deep. Six minutes and 20 seconds with an AR-15, and my friend Carmen would never complain to me about piano practice. Aaron Feis would never call Kyra "miss sunshine," Alex Schachter would never walk into school with his brother Ryan, Scott Beigel would never joke around with Cameron at camp, Helena Ramsay would never hang around after school with Max, Gina Montalto would never wave to her friend Liam at lunch, Joaquin Oliver would never play basketball with Sam or Dylan. Alaina Petty would never, Cara Loughren would never, Chris Hixon would never, Luke Hoyer would never, Martin Duque Anguiano would never, Peter Wang would never, Alyssa Alhadeff would never, Jamie Guttenberg would never, Jamie Pollack would never.” By mentioning the names of the deceased and the activities and actions each of them were characterized for, Emma Gonzalez filled people with sadness and

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