Reading Log 2

At first when I was reading Swift's piece I thought there was no logic used at all. However, after carefully looking it over I realize he actually uses a lot of logic but in a unique way. It is almost as if he uses illogical ways to make sense of things. He gets the reader to think to extremes to point out the people of Ireland are almost at these extremes by doing what they think is ok. He shows such an extreme view of people eating babies to illustrate that even something this outrageous can be compared to the terrible acts these people are already committing and finding nothing wrong with them. In other words, he is saying that people are already murdering their babies and having abortions so why not get money for doing that and do away with famine at the same time. I think the purpose of him doing this is to open people's eyes and show them that what they are already doing is not any different than his idea which only has a couple things added to it.

Swift also uses ethos in his writing. He does not use the credibility of his own name because this was published anonymously, rather he uses his friends or people he knows that would be recognized as credible. For example, he refers a lot to his friend in London and people in America. These people, at this time, were thought of to be successful and part of a wealthy country. America was still part of England at the time but was fairly new and not suffering from poverty like Ireland was at the time. This would give the idea that listening to what these wealthy people had to say might also help these people become wealthy too, or at least get out of poverty.

Finally Swift’s use of pathos was hard for me to figure out. I would say he appeals to people's disgust and in hope that they would realize they were not truly disgusted by his ways, but instead, in their own ways which were just as bad.

I would say Swift's strongest rhetorical appeal would have been his logos. This presentation of backwards logic should really grab the reader’s attention and make them question their actions. However, the logic could not stand on its own without the reader connecting to that feeling of disgust forcing them to call their own actions into question.

Martin Luther King Jr. connects to his audience by saying, “I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms (154).” Later on when he is talking about America as a whole he says, “Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly (155).” Since King’s audience is white people who are at least somewhat prejudice if not extremely prejudice, they are not going to be easily persuaded by him. In fact, they are not even going to want to listen to what he has to say unless it really catches their attention.

Because King has such a tough audience and he knows this he needed to use every rhetoric appeal possible. He uses logic by talking about broken promises such as racial signs not being removed from stores and city leaders refusing to negotiate fairly (156). He also gives other examples that demonstrate how blacks were treated unfairly. This shows that he has a reasonable cause to be upset.

King also uses pathos to draw the audience’s emotions into the picture. He tells the audience that black people go through seeing their family killed, not being able to stay in motels but instead sleeping in their cars, being called names, and having to explain to their children that they can’t do the same things as white children can because of their skin color which causes the little kids to resent white people (158).

King makes sure he also uses ethos. As a black man who is looked down upon by his audience it would be hard for him to use himself as a credible source and King recognizes this. Therefore he uses people that even white people will think of as credible such as early Christians, Socrates, and people who participated in the Boston Tea party. He points out that all of these people were breaking the law but brings into question whether they were really doing anything wrong (161). This is a good analogy that King uses to point out that his situation is no different than any of the ones he mentioned.

I think King was much more thoughtful and organized in his rhetoric than Obama was in his. King was faced with a very tough audience but still managed to argue very good points. On the other hand, Obama was surrounded with both people who supported him and others that did not, so he did not need to establish the same kind of common ground. Obama also did not have the as good of a delivery as King did. King also had to find a way to establish ethos without using himself and had a much stronger use of pathos in his speech.

Obama was able to use that face that he was in the presence of all Democrats in his first two situations which automatically established a common ground for him. This gave him a little boost to be able to persuade those people to vote for him. Alternatively, King being in jail and having people oppose him was not an easy situation, but he was able to use all the bad experiences he had been through to appeal to the emotions of his audience and open their eyes to how poorly blacks really were treated.