The musical, Hamilton, created by Lin-Manuel Miranda, includes many uses of rhetoric throughout the writing. Rhetoric is the use of effective or persuasive writing/speaking that can be used through figures of speech or other techniques. Many uses of rhetoric in Hamilton would include repetition, alliteration, emotion, and rhyme. Repetition is a widely used rhetorical device shown throughout Hamilton. For example, it is used in the song “My Shot”, when Hamilton is expressing how he will never give up his shot to prove himself. Rhyme is also used frequently, especially in the few opening songs of the musical. In the song “Alexander Hamilton” and “Aaron Burr Sir” rhyme is seemed to be used to establish a form of ground excitement for the rest of the musical.  My favorite form of rhyme in this musical would be found in the song “Alexander Hamilton”, this is because I can establish how the song relates to history itself.

This week in class we discussed the use of rhetoric in Hamilton and how it contributed to the musical itself. Throughout Hamilton emotion was frequently used to persuade the audience to think about a character a specific way. For instance, how emotion was used to persuade the audience to feel a certain way about Hamilton after he cheated on Eliza.

This week I have noticed the use of rhetoric in my everyday life. While in Waco for a SkillsUSA competition, a guest speaker was talking during the Opening Ceremony. He was mentioning his journey through high school and college and how SkillsUSA impacted him. I noticed rhetoric in his speech when the speaker was convincing the audience to stay in SkillsUSA and to keep the journey going through college.

In this political cartoon rhetoric is used to provide the overall message. The rhetorical device used would be emotion which is used to show the audience the difference between rich and poor countries. As seen in the cartoon, you have an overweight man and 2 malnourished people labeled under “3rd world”. The malnourished people are saying that obesity is a disease they will never have to worry about, which is because these countries have economic deficiencies which result in the lack of money for food.