Patrick Henry Rhetorical Strategies

During 1775, the American Colonies had a dispute between each other in the Virginia Convention on whether a war should be declared against Britain. For one of the meetings, Patrick Henry, an attorney and politician, gave a speech explaining his position on why the colonies should go to war. In his speech, Henry successfully applied the rhetorical strategies of metaphor and repetition to convey his argument that a war against Britain was the only right course of action to take. At the Virginia Convention, Henry implemented various rhetorical strategies to convince the colonies to declare a war on Britain. He stated that it was natural for them to “indulge in the illusions of hope.” Instead of belittling and mocking his audience for hoping to
avoid war, Henry presented himself as the giver of unpleasant news. Consequently, he caused the audience to trust him more because he did not look down on them. In addition, by portraying himself as a teacher rather than a mocker, Henry made the audience listen to his explanation without feeling ridiculed. Henry also warned the audience that shutting their “eyes against [the] painful truth” of subjugation under the British was like listening to “the song of [a] siren" as death approached. This metaphor continued the idea that the British were luring the colonies with false hope of resolution until the British took advantage of them. Henry implemented the comparison to illustrate his reasoning because the siren was a well-known mythical monster who lured its prey with the promise of joy and happiness, but gave death instead. Furthermore, by inserting the imagery of the British as monsters into the audience’s mind, Henry caused them to be extremely wary of allowing British military into their land. Because of this imagery and metaphor, Henry’s argument that the painful truth was better than false hope resonated well with the colonists. After arguing that the colonists needed to face the truth, Henry invalidated the opposing argument and urged the colonies to fight together for their freedom.
He repeated the phrase “we have” to invalidate the idea that the colonies needed to remain respectful toward Britain and to arrange a treaty. By listing all the actions that they had undertaken using “we have,” Henry projected the idea that it was not the colonies’ fault that a war was needed and that they had taken every action possible to avoid a fight with Britain. Moreover, he placed the blame on the British for ignoring their supplication for negotiations and insulting the colonies with contempt. Henry also repeated the words “we” and “ourselves” many times as he was convincing the colonies to join for a war against Britain. He used these repetitions to convey that he wanted what was best for the colonies, not only himself. Additionally, he tried to promote the idea of unity and patriotism between the colonies, so that they could fight their common enemy-Britain. Therefore, Henry successfully used repetition to refute counter-arguments on why the colonies should not go to war. All in all, Henry strongly applied various rhetorical strategies to persuade the colonies to declare war against Britain. Additionally, he discredited counter-arguments from those who wanted peace with Britain. Thus, Patrick Henry implemented metaphor and repetition to delineate his argument on why the colonies should declare war against
Britain.