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Assignment One: Rhetorical Analysis of A Documentary Film
Assignment One: Rhetorical Analysis of A Documentary Film
The rhetorical effect of ‘pray the devil back to hell’ has been an integration of
pathos, logos, and ethos. To begin with, the first and one of the main story teller in
this documentary has been one of those survived the hard-living condition of the
Liberian, where tyrant and terrorists were out of law and ruined every family. Vivid
descriptions and emotionally loaded languages bring audience back to that world, in
which women and men are humiliated and killed very often. Informed opinions from
Washington Post and other mainstream media have reported the evil president in
power and his inaction in Liberia. Next, how come the children’s situation over that
time, and what has caused the endless war in the eye of the civilian. The film began
with the children in Liberia, without food but fear, or carrying with the gun of the
same height with them, and some of them are fed on drugs. According to the claim of
a female activist, “nothing should make people do what they have done to the children
in Liberia.” Therefore, I suppose that if the idea that children are the future of a
nation, the director may have manifested the situation to the audience at the very
beginning of the documentary. It is said that the war there is between the rich and the
poor, the hatred and ethnic groups. Still by the choice of the violators exemplified in
the film, what can be clarified for the rest is that it is a war for natural resources.
The for this film is people who are concerned about race relations including
potential audience can find truth in those obstacles and female activities. As
demonstrated in the film, the headline of a press that the tyrant we are too willing to
live with, implying the president who had forced people to elect him, and who had
been closely working with terrorists like al Qaeda and Hezbollah. And other facts
disclosed in mainstream media from America have been strikingly similar, including
the coverage and shoots of the civilian and children lost their legs without accidents,
yet no girls or women are able to protect themselves. What is worse, the president
gained sole control of the national finance to put diamonds in his own pocket, while
left others in this country could not afford rice, and those fact are not only emotional
resonance for audience to feel sympathy, but also foreshadowing women’s activities
organized soon.
Another clip in this documentary with two bulks of folks in the scene must have
truck, and others stood alone on the road alarmingly. The idea of fear in the film has
been clear on both of their faces and the theme of that period, and neither side of them
were able to break the balance, however, women activities in Liberia have made the
peace talk significantly. To emphasize the civilian's situation and ring the audience's
sympathy, the author has introduced a series of images of a burial ground, and above
them are callings of peace and missing painted in black, which people were dared to
speak out. At the same time, the ethos has been transmitted to the audience by way of
the convincible recollection of the speaker, saying that over the days most of them
would pray before asleep: "Could I have something different the next day?". The
incentives for a gathering at church to pray for peace, and that can also be linked to
the rhetorical situation of the coffin scrawled, and limited elements have symbolized
the context of Liberia by extremes, pray or death. I assume that the successful church
gathering had brought people delight and belief, according to the assistant director of
the documentary, and the film has revealed the initial process of women activities,
Furthermore, when women continue to gather for peace, men are massed for
fortune, power, and recklessness. Among several women interviewed, one of them
was a victim, and she said that the men rape women in front of their family just
because they have guns. Misery never came along on that land, and one of the true
stories in the film has drawn tears of both the speaker and the audience, about a wife
who was forced to witness men raping her child and killing her husband.
The outcome of that regretful period has been forecasted in the film with voice is
of sorrow reflecting pathos when women were assembling for peace: Can the bullet
pick and choose? Does the bullet know Christian from Muslim? The answer to the
question ended with a young child staring at the camera lens, with blank looking on
languages for audience to imply the efficiency of the female activities in different
phases.
References:
Edited by Kate Taverna and Meg Reticker. Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Gini, R.