Custom essays on Patrick Henry

Patrick Henry speaks with considerable urgency. Provide examples from his speech of his urgent tone.
Patrick speaks with considerable urgency to convey through his speech that he is speaking about matters which define the future life of the American society. For instance, he uses the simplified language and omits some words to convey his message to the audience and to urge them to start acting. The urgent tone can be traced through intonation as well as the omission of certain words, which are normally used in the literary speech.
Moreover, he sticks to the point strictly to avoid unnecessary explanations and to convey the core ideas of his message. People do not have time to think of what Henry is saying but, due to the high emotional impact of his speech, people are ready to start acting just under the impact of their emotions.
In such a way, Henry skillfully manipulates with the consciousness of his audience. The urgent tone makes his speech of the utmost importance. People do not have time to understand and evaluate what they are hearing but Henry forces them to start acting right now without even thinking of his words. This is the major effect of the urgent tone and it is due to the urgent tone he meets his goal to inflame the audience and stimulate people to start acting.
Henry uses urgency throughout his speech. For instance, he changes ideas one after another fast. To put it more precisely, he puts in an idea or message into his speech but he does not give time for the audience to think over this message. Instead, he puts in another idea and message which may frighten the audience. For instance, he stresses that the British will oppress the colonists and took all the benefits from the trade with the colonists, whereas the latter are doomed to failure. However, Henry does not give much explanation to such statements. Instead, he starts a new message to convey to the audience, which is brief and as frightening as the previous one. As a result, Henry keeps his audience in tension throughout his speech but he does not provide detailed explanations to his key points, which he stresses in the course of the speech. At the same time, Henry stresses that there are only two options Americans can choose from:

freedom or slavery. He does not provide other options available. Instead, he lays emphasis on the two aforementioned options and urges the audience to choose either option.
9. Compare and contrast how John Dickinson, Patrick Henry, and John Hancock use emotions to persuade.
Dickinson mainly refers to reason, whereas Henry refers to fear and raises strong emotions in his audience. Hancock combines both appeals to reason and emotions of the audience. In fact, all three refers to emotions to a certain degree. Remarkably, all of them directly or indirectly use fear as a strong motivating factor to urge the audience to act and to rise against the oppression from the part of the British. Thus, they make their speech emotionally colored and persuading.
The use of emotions to persuade the audience is very effective, especially when speakers use such strong emotions as fear or when they use the urgent tone as the aforementioned speakers have done. The use of emotions shifts the attention of the audience from the logical reasoning and evaluation of the speech to the emotional perception of inflaming words of speakers. In such a way, the audience grows emotionally involved and ready to follow the lead of the speaker and accept his message almost pointblank.
Finally, emotions are an effective tool to use in the speech, which is full of complex or abstract terms and concepts, such as patriotism. As a result, speakers use emotions to close the gap between them and the audience. Thus, they make their speeches persuading.

 
Works Cited
Reid, R.F. & J.F. Klumpp. American Rhetorical Discourse. New York: Waveland Press, 2004.