Rhetorical devices

Direct address and allusion

In “Dominion Over Nature”, Robert Pack primarily makes use of direct address and allusion. By allusion, we understand the indirect reference to an event, a place, or a famous person. 

In the text, Robert Pack makes a direct reference to the Bible, particularly to The Book of Genesis, which becomes the focal point of his argumentation: “The origin of humankind’s ambivalence towards nature can be located metaphorically in the book of Genesis” (ll. 1-2). 

Direct address to something which we all know (the Bible) helps Pack explain his arguments in a clear fashion as he is tracing the origins of man’s contradictory attitude to nature. Pack tries to show that the two commandments from Genesis contradict each other, as one cann...