Rhetorical Analysis

Rhetorical Analysis

The Greek philosopher Aristotle divided the means of persuasion, appeals, into three categories: Ethos, Pathos and Logos.

Ethos, or ethical appeal, means convincing by the character of the author. Pathos means persuading by appealing to the reader's emotions and Logos means persuading by the use of reasoning.

The advertisement that we decided to analyze is a black and white picture, this picture is showing a hand holding a cigarette and the shadow of this cigarette form a gun. It seems that is a simple image, but in an unconscious way, this advertisement utilizes the three rhetorical appeals of ethos, logos and pathos. Through this, the image is able to pass down a vivid sense of danger and create awareness of the negative effects of smoking

We found this picture in Ivo Vodanovic’s website, he is a blogger who recollect images of diverse topics, we select this image from one of his latest post “Creative campaigns to stop smoking” which consist in a group of creative pictures with the intention of persuade the people stop smoke.

The main function of this image is evoke a response from its audience, which are both smokers and non-smokers alike. In the non-smoking audience, the image may increase their distaste of smoking or maybe they could be irrelevant because this topic has little or no effect on their lives. To smokers, this advertisement could be a reminder of the damage they are doing to their bodies, for others, this image could be unoriginal or detestable because they feel as a personal attack on them and their views and habits. But for the most part, they will be indifferent, because they already know how bad it’s that for their health, and will continue to smoke.

The first rhetorical appeal in this picture is pathos. The colors used in this image, black and white, creates a situation of yes or no, it refers that smoke or not is a life or death decision. The fact that the author of this image didn’t show any face in this picture makes this picture even deeper because it can transmit more emotions to the viewer because you can put you own body to that cigarette, I mean, you can imagine you smoking that murder weapon and it makes you think that the hand that is holding the cigarette could be yours.

The shadow of the cigarette that is forming the gun appeals to the emotions in several ways. It immediately caps the audience’s attention, because guns are very dangerous and also a controversial topic in almost every culture around the world. What the author wants to show us through this gun is even deeper, because he put this weapon as an allusive way of suicide. It’s saying that if someone smokes, they might as well be pointing a gun at their own head. This causes the viewer be surprised because the person who is holding the cigarette clearly going to be the cause of his own death. The topic

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