Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Helen Keller

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On January 5th 1916, Helen Keller delivered a powerful and passionate speech to a crowd of hardworking American citizens. She was trying to persuade her audience that World War 1 would not be beneficial for them, but actually detrimental. Keller was not in support of the war because she claimed that it would only benefit the upper class. Comparisons to previous wars and imagery are two other techniques that Helen Keller used to convince her audience, the working class, that giving their support to World War 1 would be unadvisable. An arguement that Keller makes for not supporting the war is that the United States is only looking out for themselves and not the working class. In the second paragraph, Keller states, "congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors". Keller believes that the government is not putting its citizens first and therefore the citizens should not be supportive of the United States. Even though it is the citizens who work tirelessly everyday to create a better future for …show more content…

Keller says that American labor has been exploited for the capital, but the workers have recieved much less. Many scrape by, just making enough money to support themselves and their families. Keller also states that "every modern war has had its roots in exploitation". She compares the exploitaion in the Civil War, the Spanish American War, the South African War, and the Russo Japanese War to the exploitaion that would occur in World War 1. Exploitation is a negative concept that the audienceelen Keller is addressing wants no part in. Keller is equating supporting the war to also supporting exploitation. This is a significant technique that is used in order to persuade the working class in to being against the United States joining World War

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