Now, write a comparison of the rhetoric in Stanton’s “A Plea for the Oppressed” and Lewis’s speech at the King Memorial groundbreaking. In your analysis, explain how the two speakers use similar or different strategies to achieve their purposes. Include your paragraph from Part B and the information you included in the table in Part C. Be sure to include textual evidence and commentary in your response. TIP: If needed, review these writing strategies.

PLATO
In two speeches, delivered 150 years apart, two activists use rhetoric to advocate for basic human dignity. Here is how their rhetorical strategies compare.

Stanton’s Logos Appeal. In “A Plea for the Oppressed,” Lucy Stanton’s purpose is to convince her audience that the fight to end to slavery is their fight. One of most effective parts of her speech is her logos appeal to reformers in the audience, such as those in the peace movement. She connects their cause to the cause of abolition in a powerful extended metaphor that begins, “Slavery is the combination of all crime. It is War.” Showing the logical connection between war and slavery makes it difficult for peace activists to fail to support abolition.

Lewis’s Ethos Appeal. Representative John Lewis’s purpose in his speech at the King Memorial groundbreaking is to remind the nation that King’s work is unfinished. His primary appeal is ethos. He is able to make this appeal by drawing on his position as a popular representative, a leader of the civil rights movement, and a personal friend of Martin Luther King’s. In a series of parallel phrases, Lewis establishes that he and King were very close. The anecdote Lewis recalls about being a teenager in the segregated South, and the impact of hearing King on the radio, adds a strong emotional appeal to the ethical one as Lewis calls for the next generation to carry on King’s legacy. He is uniquely qualified to commemorate King.

The different appeals each speaker emphasizes reflects their status. Stanton was young graduate, and Lewis was a revered politician. Both weave all three appeals into their speeches, but only Lewis can lean heavily on the ethical appeal.