Gettysburg Address Rhetorical Devices

Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg not only memorialized the deaths of the fallen, but also, through the use of the rhetorical strategies of repetition, pathos, and syntax, served as a away to get the people to continue the war. His syntax was most effective in the way that his speech was only composed of two hundred and seventy-words and still serves as one of the greatest speeches ever made. Lincoln’s repetition was used very carefully concentrating on the words being repeated and finally his use of pathos. Lincoln used pathos in away that affected the audience’s emotional views about the battle and the emotional connection between him and the audience. Lincoln’s speech was successful because of these rhetoric devices. Lincoln structured his
To truly convince one’s audience to agree, one must make a connection with them. The people were there to hear a speech about the lives lost at the battle and Lincoln did just that while using emotional connections to impact the audience. This is shown in his phrase, “We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives, that the nation might live It is all together fitting and proper that we should do this.” In this phrase Lincoln addressing the lives lost and how important it is the mourn them. Lincoln understood the grief the people were feeling for their losses and affects of the war, he wanted the audience to know that he felt their grief as well. Lincoln appeals to the audience’s grief by telling them that these lives were lost for a reason, for the life of the nation. He made the audience feel that those people’s deaths did not belong to the people that killed them, but their deaths meant something to the good of the nation, that their lives and deaths were worthy. Lincoln also involves the audience in the worthiness of their lives by saying, “It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here.... That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.” Lincoln puts it on the audience to continue the war so that those who had died would not have died for nothing.
Asyndeton in his syntax and careful repetition drove Lincoln’s audience into action. His usage of contrast between the lives of those who fought and the life of nation and the emotional connection about personal losses, made the audience feel as if the lives lost meant something bigger than just a victory for the union, but for the entire Nation. Without these rhetorical devices, Lincoln’s speech would most likely not have been as effective in memorializing the deaths of those who had fought and in getting people to be in favor of continuing the