Running head: RHETORICAL ANALYSIS FINAL 1

Rhetorical Analysis Final

Joshua A Zamora

University Of Texas At El Paso

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Introduction
People are being swayed all the time by things they see in their everyday lives and

essentially these images enlighten humans with moral ideas that they perceive to be righteous. In

many ways visualizing a key concept is a far more interesting and easier to the human brain than

any other genre. Therefore, I will analyze two visuals by identifying Ethos, Pathos, Logos and

other notions to see if they truly display a thoughtful image.

First Visual
To begin, this image depicts several aspects of rhetorical appeal. The first characteristic

well be analyzing is ethos. Ethos being an appeal to creditability, this image contains some level

of credibility. It quotes a line from the bible and has a name of the artist/maker of the cartoon

itself. Secondly, the image has Logos because it appeals to the intellectual side in several of

ways. It depicts a gorilla literally attempting to rip apart the bible because a line in the bible says

that the scripture cannot be broken. Of course, the biblical line is meant to not only be

understood literally but figuratively

because the ape has the words action

around the nation written along its chest

meaning how atheists are trying to disprove

gods truth by the saying Ill rip it

apart!. The reason its a gorilla instead of

a human being is because the gorilla is

depicting an atheist point of view of the

theory of evolution where humans

developed from apes; thus, pointing out

how untrue the origins and other truths are

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in the bible. The picture also appeals to Pathos or the emotional side because it gives a

generalization that all atheists are trying to rip apart Christians beliefs is a rather aggressive act.

Furthermore, the audience this visual was trying to reach out to is either believers or non-

believers in Christianity or religion itself. Its attempting to show the distaste atheists have for

religion and their urgent need to invalidate it. Some constraints may include not trying to offend

atheists by making them seem too aggressive and mean when not all atheists are. Also, to not

make it seem like religion has no creditability or that they are the definite wrong side of this

argument.

Second Visual

Next, this image also depicts several aspects of rhetorical appeal. The Ethos side of this

visual is shown in the words that are used. You can draw some credibility because the words are

somewhat of higher vocabulary. Next, Logos is depicted in several of ways like the last visual. It

shows three men walking down

a staircase and it goes from the

youngest man (top) to the oldest

man (bottom). This secludes that

the older you get the wiser you

get and therefore, the closer you

are and will be to atheism. Also,

the saying, the descent of the

modernists pointing out that

many modern people are

reaching that point of intellect

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where they question deities and are finally conclude that there are no gods. Next, this graphic is

appealing to emotion by showing how many people start off unwise or unknowing then

eventually after years of analyzing they finally realize the truth which can be disconcerting to

some younger audiences who believe in religion. As a result, the intended audience is mainly a

younger demographic who the artist is trying to persuade into not believing in religion now

rather than a lifetime later. Some constraints of this may include being only able to list a limited

number of words that describe the descent to atheism because of the genre used which has less

space than say an article on this topic.

Conclusion

To conclude, both images contain all three aspects of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Also they

have a certain audience and exigence behind each one. Although, both images dont have many

constraints as they are mainly opinionated. Overall, they both are thought provoking images and

are truly rhetorical situations.