Rhetorical Essay

Rhetorical Analysis

John Grisham uses personal experience and cause and effect strategies for emotional appeals or also known as pathos to show the audience how movies greatly influence people and their decisions.

Rather on the news or a friend telling you of a murder, you feel sympathy towards the person who died and the family of the victim. There’s only so much you can feel about the murder, only because you either don’t know the victim or you don’t know all the details of what happened when you hear about the person and who they were before they died you start to connect, just like a character in a book that you slowly develop in your mind.

“I didn’t know much about him back then, just that he was soft spoken, exceedingly polite, always ready with a smile and a warm greeting.”(1) Grisham gives the background of Bill Savage, only to give the readers a sense of who Bill Savage was a nice person who you sympathetic towards. Grisham wrote that statement to get the readers attention. He didn’t want to just say Bill Savage was a good guy, because the statement is too plain. He adds more background that information for a reason. That reason was to show Bill Savage was a wonderful person and to make the reader feel sympathetic for what had happen and to make you want the murderer to serve their punishment.

“Bill Savage was not the kind of person to create ill will or maintain enemies”(1). Everyone has an enemy, that’s why Grisham says “maintain”. I take from this quote that once people got to know Savage they befriended him. Grisham is saying this to show the reader that Bill couldn’t have been killed by people he knows. “The townspeople of Hernado were stunned”(1). He is liked by everyone or else Grisham wouldn’t have said it that way. Bill was killed by a complete stranger.

“He was active in local affairs, a devoted Christian and solid citizen who believed in public service and always ready to volunteer”(1) .Ben had no rhyme or reason to murder Bill because Grisham demonstrates how bill has no character traits to have any enemies therefore the murder was done in cold blood. All these quotes which are background information and personal experience strategy are given so the reader has a sense of who Bill was and a sense of who Ben was a way of showing how effective background information is to a reader. Without that information that John Grisham provides us with, Bill Savage is just some ordinary man.

This whole rhetorical analysis is cause and effect analysis. Grisham is showing how an event is taken place and the consequence are being forced. Sarah and Ben’s crime and punishment is not the main cause and effect. The main cause of the story is the movie “Natural Born Killer” is produced and the effect is people like Ben and Sarah who watch the movie and imitate the main characters, Mickey and Mallory, committing murder.

“Ben asked Bill Savage for directions to Interstate 55. Sarah says that Mr. Savage knew they were up to something. As he gave directions, he walked around the desk toward Ben, at which one point Ben removed the .38 and shot Mr. Savage in the head. вЂ?He threw up his hands and made a horrible sound,’ she testified. There was a brief struggle between the two men, a struggle that ended when Ben shot Mr. Savage for the second time”(1). This was said only to create an image for the reader. Without this image the reader would only have that Bill Savage was murdered. That image is just too broad, so, by telling exactly how Savage was killed the reader can now be more comfortable with understanding the story.

“Around midnight, a young woman entered the convenience store and walked to a rack where she grabbed three chocolate bars. As she approached the checkout counter, Patsy Byers noticed the candy, but she didn’t notice the .38. The young woman thrust it forward, pulled the trigger, and shot Patsy in the throat”(1). The murder of Patsy Byers is the cause. The author added “she grabbed