retorical analysis

A detailed Summary of retorical analysis

If your own flesh and blood were brutally murdered, would you want the culprit to live the rest of their life in a cell, or be forced to meet the same fate your innocent loved one did? This is the question that former New York City mayor, Edward I. Koch, addresses in his 1985 article, "Death and Justice", which was printed in The New Republic, a magazine that generally publishes articles dealing with controversial political issues. Koch claims the death penalty is just and defends his statement by using his former public service as ethos, strong language and concrete examples as pathos, and by disproving capital punishment rebuttals as a means of developing logos. Because the readers of this magazine are usually actively involved in political issues, Koch does not have to "soften up his paper." He is aiming to prove a point, and the politically sound readers are not going to be scared away by concrete examples and strong language.

Appealing to pathos, this article is very upfront and immediately reveals the authors standing on the matter. In the first paragraph, he gives rather absurd examples of convicted murderers pleading for their lives. Robert Lee

"...I have sometimes been the subject of emotional and outraged attacks by voters who find my position reprehensible or worse. I have listened to their ideas. I have weighed their objections carefully. I still support the death penalty. The reasons I maintain my position can be best understood by examining the arguments most frequently heard in opposition."

Koch, Edward I. "Death and Justice: How Capital Punishment Affirms Life." The New

Republic, April 15, 1985. (In Conversations p.876)

Maintaining the straightforwardness of this paper is its most vital pathetic asset. He is blatant by saying: this is what you may think, and then this is the way I have actually witnessed it. This structure is extremely effective because a political audience can appreciate someone who addresses an issue head-on. The category or issue is capital punishment. Capital punishment is necessary for justice. The consequence of no capital punishment would be an unjust system of laws. Capital punishment is not murder. It is a good means of justification. Capital punishment should be a federal law. These things are all very clear in "Death and Justice."

"It is hard to imagine anything worse than being murdered while neighbors do nothing. But something worse exists. When those same neighbors shrink back from justly punishing the murderer, the victim dies twice."

Logos is developed further in the seventh paragraph. Capital punishment doubters claim: "No other major democracy uses the death penalty." Koch proceeds to emphasize the fact that no other countries have a murder rate close to the United States. Additionally, the M.I.T. study that revealed a person living in a major U.S. city in 1970 ran a greater risk of being killed than a combat soldier in WWII. This shows that our need for capital punishment is greater than other countries. Therefore, the stated reason for opposition is n

Some common words found in the essay are:
Edward Koch, Kitty Genovese, Death Justice, York City, Lee Willie, Additionally MIT, Luis Vera, death penalty, capital punishment, Republic April, death justice, political issues koch, issues koch, political issues, edward koch, reader question, public service, murdered neighbors, anti-capital punishment,

Approximate Word count = 1270
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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