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Katherine Hayes Erin Dietel-McLaughlin Writing and Rhetoric 13300 10/8/13 The Art of Rhetoric through Emotion and Realism A very popular and quite simplistic definition of rhetoric is simply the study of persuasion (Herrick 3). In practicing rhetoric, artists learn how to alter our perceptions of situations or ideas through what they imply or suggest in their works. Rhetorical strategies are ideas that are intentionally expressed through symbolism (Herrick 7). The use of these strategies can greatly enhance a viewers perception of a work of art or sample of writing, because the use of these strategies is the author or artists way of letting the viewer know to what he should be paying attention, and therefore implying the way one should feel or react in response. Charles Moores photograph of civil rights demonstrators being attacked by fire uses the rhetorical strategies of appealing to ethos and pathos. Ethos is the sense of credibility that a work or idea holds. Anything that appeals to ethos therefore seems reliable and trustworthy to the reader or viewer. Pathos is associated with emotion and sympathies; pathos allows the reader to understand how the writer feels and sympathize with those emotions (Bean and Ramage 81-82). These strategies give extreme rhetorical power to the image and its surrounding situation. Ethos is demonstrated within Moores images in the sense that there is

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no denying their genuine authenticity. One would not want or try to recreate these photographs under the same circumstances which they were originally captured, as they are situations of pure violence. The image of the civil rights demonstrators being attacked with a fire hose is especially ruthless because it is just as the title suggests, they are being attacked. The viewers emotions are evoked strongly by this photograph, showing that pathos is also a major component in forming the rhetorical identity of the image. The people in the image are young; young enough to be my friends or myself, for that matter. The final contributor to the rhetorical power of this image that will be discussed is the visible pain of the photographed subjects, which is evident in their body language and the way that they position themselves around one another. Through these rhetorical strategies and more, which will not be covered in this paper, Charles Moore creates an astoundingly powerful image of the Civil Rights Movement that will prove to stand the tests of time and live on for generations. The images will describe to viewers the hardships that many of these protestors faced, and will continue to express these difficulties for years after the legal resolution of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1970s with the passing of the Equal Rights Amendment through Congress, an d even after Charles Moores death in 2010. For an image or other work of art to appeal to ethos, it must be undeniably believable. Nothing about the photograph of these three young protestors leads one to believe that it is a recreation. Much of the credibility of this image stems from the surrounding rhetorical situation, which can be defined by Lloyd F. Bitzer as the context in which speakers or writ ers create rhetorical discourse (1). The rhetorical situation that accompanies this photograph is one of violence and brutality, as police men and their dogs beat and attack peaceful civil rights

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demonstrators in the middle of the streets of Birmingham, Alabama. As a professional photographer for Life Magazine, Moore was there, taking up-close and personal pictures of the events as they unfolded. He had one thing that most of the other photographers didn't have: He insisted on getting in close, says Ben Chapnick, on air for NPR. Very rarely, if ever, did he use a long lens. He was always right in the middle and quite often, you'll see him in other people's pictures. Chapnick is the president of Black Star, which is the photography agency that represented Moore while he captured the Civil Rights Movement on film. Because Moore got so close to his subjects, a viewer of his photographs almost forgets that they are looking at an image. It tends to feel almost as if one is standing directly beside the action, watching everything develop alongside Moore. Immersing oneself in a work the way that viewers can immerse themselves in Moores photography has a sense of virtual reality, a simile devised and expanded by Bolter and Grusin in their essay regarding immediacy. Throughout their extended comparison of immediacy to virtual reality, they argue the claim that both of the media are ones whose purpose is to disappear (2). Moore does just that, and in turn brings us directly into the heart of the brutality of the Civil Rights Movement, convincing his viewers that nothing about his images could possibly be fabricated and appealing directly the sense of ethos of said viewers. Moore not only convinces viewers of the harsh reality of his images, but also effectively employs factors in his photographs that appeal directly to pathos, which is a sense of emotional connection. Pathos is frequently expressed through empathy, which can be drawn from many situations. One of the easiest ways to experience empathy is by being able to personally connect with another persons emotions or situation. Although I have never been in a situation

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that remotely resembles the one surrounding the photographed teenagers, I can connect with them on the one thing that I am sure we have in common: our age. As previously stated, they are definitely teenagers. For that reason alone, many young adults feel as though they can connect with these three people whom they never have and never will meet. The feeling that these teenagers could easily be replaced by a viewer or someone with whom a viewer is close forces reconsideration of the image. It is easy, on a certain level, to pass by an image such as this and not give it a second thought. However, when viewed closely and under the realization that those people could have easily been a loved one, the image grows substantially more heart wrenching and difficult to fathom. In this manner, Moore allows pathos to cause his viewers to feel commanding empathy for the subjects of his photograph, in turn lending more rhetorical strength to his work. In a further attempt to gain the compassion of viewers, Moore captures his image at a time where the three pictured teenagers are visibly in pain. The boy furthest to the right is bent backwards as the water hose is aimed directly at his unprotected back. In the middle, there is a boy who appears to be shielding the girl on the left, as her facial expression conveys sentiments of terror. Pain and discomfort are feelings that are nearly universal. The body language and appearance of fear are ones with which most people are familiar and compassionate. Such a connection through rhetoric is called enthymeme, a term first coined by Aristotle. It can be defined as an argument built from values, beliefs, or knowledge held in common by a speaker and an audience (Herrick 9). Because it is commonplace for people to have a knowledge of fear and similar beliefs based on basic human rights, Moore builds empathy for these teenagers through enthymeme. Therefore, the presence of their raw emotion in the image draws

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sympathy from viewers and also convinces them of the authenticity of the photograph, enhancing the appeals to both pathos and ethos in the image. In summary, Charles Moore uses the rhetorical strategies both of ethos and of pathos in his image to convince his viewers of the realistic setting and emotion that it captures. His use of immediacy allows his photographs to begin to break down the walls between flat image and virtual reality, as referenced by Bolter and Grusin. The ultimate goal of rhetoric is to be able to shift into and out of virtual reality and to be able to see the world from all angles. An author or artist who is truly skilled in the practice of rhetoric will be able to effectively express any thought or idea through the use of symbols and media, and convince the viewer that there is no other way to view that work than the way it is presented. Rhetoric is the exercise of convincing viewers that the artists perspective is fact, and must be accepted as such, and Charles Moore has mastered just that.

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Works Cited Bitzer, Lloyd F. "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy & Rhetoric. 1st ed. Vol. 1. University Park, PA: Penn State UP, 1968. 1-14. Jan 1968. JSTOR. ITHAKA, 25 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Bolter, J. David, and Richard A. Grusin. "Immediacy, Hypermediacy, and Remediation." Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1999. 21-50. Print. "Civil Rights: Timeline of Events." Findlaw. Thomson Reuters, n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Herrick, James A. "An Overview of Rhetoric." The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn and Beacon, 2001. 1-30. Print. O'Neill, Claire. "Civil Rights Photographer Charles Moore Remembered." NPR. NPR, 16 Mar. 2010. Web. 11 Oct. 2013. Ramage, John D., and John C. Bean. Writing Arguments. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1998. 81-82. Print.

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