She expresses her sense of agency when she says that it "is not just the creature of the hour." Had she felt it was just a phase in America's progression than she wouldn't have made a comment such as this. She understood that change had to be made in order for America to progress and that people had to realize that lynching had been an "unwritten law" for much too long.
Wells Barnett also writes with a sense of exigency and logos as she tries to appeal to American nationalism with a shared logic in American identity. She uses terms such as "moral and philanthropic forces of the country" as to persuade Americans almost with a sense of guilt. She also uses many facts throughout her speech, such as the fact that 10,000 people were killed in lynches, to appeal to the audience's moral reasoning.
I feel that her purpose for writing this piece was that Americans would no longer stay quiet about the issue that they are all well aware of. As we discussed in class, she felt that a mob mentality was stronger than the government which can create chaos in the country. Most of all, she wanted to inform Americans as to prevent lynching from continuing in the future.
I found Taryn’s post very enlightening because I had never thought about how Wells-Barnett “persuade[s] Americans almost with a sense of guilt.” I would like to add to Taryn’s theory by further discussing the ways that she invokes guilt.
ReplyDeleteWells-Barnett’s first step in causing a sense of guilt is impersonal. She clearly lays out statistics about lynching. For example, “in 1892, when lynching reached high-water mark, there were 241 persons lynched” (Wells-Barnett Paragraph 8). Then the following chart lists the number of death per state. It is significant that the state chart lists the states in alphabetical order. This is impersonal compared to other charts that list number of people lynched by crime that they were accused of. The crimes are not listed alphabetically; they are listed by the highest number of deaths. This is because readers are more likely to identify with their state in a personal way that with an accused crime. So, the purpose of these charts is for the reader to be shocked and appauled by the numbers, not for them to spend time rationalizing the numbers because of a personal connection.
Wells-Barnett appeals to the emotions of the reader personally by invoking national sentiment and shame to complement the impersonal numbers. As Taryn said, the phrase “moral and philanthropic forces of the country” is used to appeal to national sentiment. This helps the reader to identify with their country. But, Wells-Barnett also says that “it should be the nation’s duty to correct its own evils!” (Wells-Barnett Paragraph 13). So, she ties the feeling of nationalism to a feeling of shared responsiblity so that the reader feels a personal responsibility. She uses “boasted Amercan civilization” (Wells-Barnett Paragraph 15) to emphasize the gap between what American civilization could be and what it has become. This may anger or offend or at the very least call to action the patriotic reader who was drawn in by the nationalistic sentiment that was originally used.
So, Wells-Barnett’s writing uses facts to shock the reader, nationalism to emotionally connect with them, and guilts the reader toward action by connecting the shock and the nationalism.