Jimmy Carter Rhetorical Devices

In former United State’s president Jimmy Carter’s Foreword to Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Season of Life and Land, A Photographic Journey by Subhankar Banerjee, he states his opinions on the topic of turning the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge into a building for industry. In this foreword, Carter uses three main rhetorical devices in order to strengthen the logic and persuasiveness of his argument of protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. These three rhetorical devices: ethos, pathos, and logos, are considered universally as the three necessary tools of persuasive literature. Ethos is the appeal to credibility or ethics. As a former president, Carter’s appear trustworthy to there who voted for him and believed in him back

In his farewell, Carter states that a decade year ago, his wife and him took a trip to the Arctic Refuge. Carter claims that they “walked along ancient caribou trails and studied the brilliant mosaic of wildflowers, mosses, and lichens that hugged the tundra” (2). By using such descriptive language, that appeals to one of our five senses, sight, Carter is able to help the American people image the amazing Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that they might teardown. They would feel pity for the plants and animals. Furthermore, Carter claims that most of the unforgettable experience of his trip was when they saw the migration of caribou. He described the migration with the words “the sweep of tundra before us become flooded with life, sounds of grunting animals,... clicking hooves filling the air” (3). All of his descriptive language in his foreward helps his audience, the American people, imagine that they were the ones who actually took a trip there. In addition, this also builds up Carter's credibility because he has actually been to the Refuge, his opinions of the place came from the bottom. Also, Carter later descended the refuge as “consumed by a web of reddis and pipelines, drilling rigs, and industrial facilities” (4). When he adds in a scenario of the great wilderness of the refuge being replaced by tools, the American people can image the destruction of the place which makes them feels angered and say. Carter uses pathos by appealing to the feeling of pity, anger, and sadness to strengthen his