Gettysburg Address Rhetorical Analysis

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The Battle of Gettysburg was a civil war battle fought during the summer of 1863. This single battle resulted in over fifty thousand casualties for both the Union and Confederate soldiers, whether dead, wounded or missing. Four months after this bloody battle, a Soldier’s National Cemetery was dedicated for the Union soldiers, among the speakers was President Abraham Lincoln. Although he was not the keynote speaker, President Lincoln took this opportunity to render a short, compelling speech that would become known as “The Gettysburg Address”. That speech is heralded as one of America’s greatest speeches and through the structure, style and emotion that President Lincoln imparted into it, he laid the ground work for the reunification of a young country that was at odds with itself. …show more content…

Szymon Wrobel stated that many years ago, Aristotle named these: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, which stand for: the credibility of the speaker, the emotional appeal to the audience, and the proof to support the writers claim (par 25). President Lincoln’s credibility is implied through his position and his readiness to act over the ideals that led to the civil war. Throughout the “Gettysburg Address”, President Lincoln relied heavily on the ability to bestow emotion onto the audience. By references of the founding of the nation, he can bring forth a sense of national pride. As those events were less than a hundred years before, the stories and sacrifices would still be intimately known by the people of that time. He constantly referenced the dead from the Battle of Gettysburg and ties that into the future for them and the nation. What he accomplished with this is establishing strong emotions for the loss and suffering that was done; but, instead of leaving the people with this type of feeling he conjures up for them a feeling of hope, as if to show them a light at the end of the

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