Rhetorical Analysis Of Benjamin Banneker's Letter To Thomas Jefferson

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Benjamin Banneker, the son of a former slave well educated in many fields of work, wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson about the need for abolishing slavery. Within this letter he uses rhetorical devices such as reflection and flashback,allusion, repetition and diction.

“Sir suffer me to recall to your mind that in which the arms and tyranny of the british crown was exserted”, the first times in Banneker's letter to Jefferson. He started off reminding Jefferson that he not to long ago was in the same position as those that he has enslaved, causing him to have a flashback of how it was like being in slaved to Britain. This causing the audience to have a greater sense of the writer's logic and that he ready is undering the connection between the two. It also gets not only people who read this but also the extended author and reflect and on what happened the and how what he did was like that. In another since there is an effect of ethos, its makes the text have an emotional appeal and a feeling of sympathy towards those enslaved. …show more content…
The word “Sir” is used five times in this letter, showing respect to the white man throughout the entire essay. This also shows what time period it is which is the 1700 . This shows the audience that he is being respectful but also is also getting his point across. Banneker diction show that he is well educated. Words such as; providential, miraculous, tranquility, pitiable and benevolence creates a sense of ethos, credibility that he knows what he’s talking about. Also his word choice brings more meaning to what he is saying, rather than the use of simple
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In writing my rhetorical analysis of Benjamin Banneker’s letter to Thomas Jefferson, I would have been more successful and possibly earned a higher score if I would have, gave more elaboration and support within each paragraph, used better structuring of paragraphs and elaborated vocabulary and transitions, and took more time to connect with the prompt. In the opening of my first body paragraph, I gave basic reasoning of how Banneker used emotional diction while writing to Jefferson. I successfully…

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