English essay. Analyse of Adiche's forms of appeal

Assignment #6

-Adichie & forms of appeal

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer, who writes novels, nonfiction and short stories. In this case, I’m not going to analyse a short story or a novel, but instead a speech she made about “The danger of a single story”. I’m going to analyse on her forms of appeal in her speech, by using a model called “a five-paragraph essay”. The forms of appeal I´m going to talk about is: Logos, pathos and ethos. Ethos means that you support your argument by using arguments by reference to authority, community and collective values. Logos refers to our logical sense, and pathos refers to our feelings and emotions. Adichie mainly uses logos and ethos, but she also uses a bit pathos, for example irony and humor.

Firstly, Adichie appeals to pathos by speaking very authoritative with a perfect British accent which has the effect, that she appears very confident and convincing. Besides that, she also uses humor and irony in the speech, which makes the speech more personal and emotional and this affects the audience a lot.

Secondly, Adichie appeal to logos be using some quotes from Rudyard Kipling and John Locke. For example she quotes John Locke saying this about Africans: “people without heads, having their mouth and eyes in their breasts”, and she also quotes Rudyard Kipling saying this about Africans: “half devil, half child”. This time the quotes from Rudyard Kipling and John Locke are boosting her logos because these quotes are written by respected philosophers and writers.

At last, Adichie appeals to ethos by using her personal experiences. This reveals that she has experienced “single stories” by herself. For example, she tells how her American roommate, made her think about stereotyping African people: “My American roommate was shocked by me. She asked where I had learned to speak English so well, and was confused when I said that Nigeria happened to have English as its official language”. In this case, Adichie strengthens her ethos through her personal experiences.

Overall the speech is full of ethos, pathos and logos. It truly makes the speech great and reliable. Adichie does a great job, by making the speech both serious and fun, but still showing the message very clear and understandable.

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