Rhetorical Analysis #2

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=5&hid=120&sid=07ffec13-e080-4ca6-b907 cf0b4c64fd6a%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JmxvZ2lucGFnZT1Mb2dpbi5hc3Amc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=aph&AN=34014193

"Changing Our Ways Is Possible" by Wayne Pacelle

The article linked above is actually the text to a speech given by Wayne Pacelle, the President of the Humane Society of the United States, in April of this year on defending animals against abuse. His speech was meant to move the audience, and therefore contains all three rhetorical appeals. When giving a speech, ethos is required so that your audience will take you seriously and listen to the things that you have to say. Pacelle establishes ethos in the beginning of his speech by both his elevated and sophisticated language and his affiliation with an organization that has been around and successful for many years - the Humane Society. His passion for animals can clearly be detected, even through writing, and this makes the speaker's ethos even stronger.
Perhaps the most important rhetorical appeal when making a speech is pathos, and Mr. Pacelle does this extremely well. The goal of this speech is to get people to realize that animals do not deserve to be treated cruelly and to inform people on the types of abuse that are occurring in today's world. In order to achieve his goal effectively, the speaker first described animals in a way may have caused the audience to look at them in a different light: "Animals have the same spark of life that we have....they want to live just as badly as we do...they can feel playful or angry...affectionate or afraid...sad or joyful". Pacelle not only places himself and the audience on the same level by using 'we' repeatedly, but also places human kind and animals on the same level by showing life's essential emotions are present both in the human mind and the animal mind. The speaker also draws on the emotions of the audience through his use of adjectives. For example, he talks about how animal "cruelty is on a vast scale...more systematic and ruthless than before". His descriptions of "clubbing and killing newborn seal pups" in Canada and the whale-hunting industry in Japan all cause the listener to become sympathetic with his cause. In order to make pathos effective, however, you have to be sure that the audience will not only have a changed emotional state while listening, but also in the future. One way that the speaker does this is give factual stories about animal abuse that effect a large number of people on an everyday basis. This combination of pathos and logos makes the speech that much more effective. One of the stories that is told concerns a slaughterhouse in California that was part of the largest ever meat recall in the United States. The pathos of this story lies with the description of so called 'downer cows' - cows who are unable to move themselves around: "The downer cows were being tormented with electricity to make them stand. They were rammed with forklifts. They even had a high-pressure water hose forced into their nostrils to simulate a drowning effect, so that the ailing animals would get up and move closer to the slaughter area". These descriptions are graphic and probably disgusted and infuriated his audience. The logos within the story is seen when the consequences of these actions were described, such as how 'downer cows' were more likely to contract mad cow disease, and how meat from this specific plant could possibly be infected with salmonella and e coli. These issues grab people's attention because they could be directly effected. Overall, the rhetorical appeals apparent in this speech were used both cleverly and effectively.