Finding the Rhetoric in the Rough
With diligence, determination, and vigor, amateur and professional miners alike have been known to purge the rough and rocky landscape around them in an effort to uncover a single shining gem. When it’s sparkle first catches the wary eye, an unmistakeable thrill slices the air and it is immediately captured and put away for safest keeping. Like the most beautiful and valuable gem, an example of rhetoric to an intelligent and analytical reader is priceless. He or she may find rhetoric in the most unexpected or unusual places, or maybe right under his or her nose. In this way, discovering rhetoric could be much like finding “a diamond in the rough!”
Examples of Rhetoric (all from A Night Without Armor by Jewel Kilcher)
Hyperbole: I could wander the continent of your golden valleys without ceasing and delight each day in discovering a new dawn rising from the depths of your mysterious being. (pg 24)
Rhetorical Question: Can you imagine how silent a plane crash would be if you were deaf? How unbearably loud a rape? (pg 74)
Anaphora/Repetition: I guess what I wanted was to hear you’d stay with me always. I guess what I wanted was to see those hands vowing to never leave my own. I guess what I wanted was to know I am not loving in vain. (pg 102)
Parallelism: The truth is, I tried, but never found your adoration anything other than arduous, your niceties cliched, your praise thoughtless…(pg 108)
Epistrophe: For hours I would lay flat upon the meadows, stare at the endless field of blue sky and revel in the divine placement of all things. I would walk alond in the woods and let my mind wander freely, stumble across theories on the origins of myself and all things. (pg 134)
A carefully placed metaphor can be as lovely and priceless as a rare gem. Although examples of rhetoric are not quite as rare as “a diamond in the rough,” they are every bit as valuable and precious to an analytical reader.
