Rhetorical devices
In this section, we will examine the rhetorical devices used in the speech – the language tools that help Chief Seattle make his arguments more appealing in “Selling Our Land…
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Allusion
Allusion means indirectly referring to people, literature, or events that are relevant to the purpose of the speech. Using imagery, the speaker also creates an allusion to white settlers colonizing the land and taking over the American continent, while also killing the native population:
The Earth is…
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Antithesis
The speaker uses several contrasts between white settlers and Native Americans to emphasize how white settlers’ actions affect the environment: “The Earth is not his brother, but his enemy and when he has conquered it, he moves on. (…) His appetite w…
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Direct address
On a few occasions, the speaker departs from the third-person mode of expression to address his target audience (white settlers) directly: “If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?” (ll. …
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Imagery, metaphors, and similes
The speech is full of imagery (creating mental images for the audience), usually constructed through personifying metaphors and similes.
In an extensive personifying metaphor, the speaker describes natural elements as members of the family of man, meant to suggest that one cannot exist without the other:
The Earth is not his brother, but hi…
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Parallelism
Parallelism means using phrases with similar grammatical structures to emphasize an idea. In this case, the speaker uses parallelism to show the audience that harming the environment will have a negative impact on those who do the harm: “If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.” (ll. 26-27)
A similar effect ca…
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Repetition
Repetition is used by the speaker with the purpose of making his ideas more memorable. In one instance, the speaker uses repetition to give more authority to his claims: “This we know; the Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the Earth. This we know.” (ll. 27-28).…
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Rhetorical questions
The speaker asks several rhetorical questions during his speech, which are meant to encourage the audience to reflect on the ideas he proposes about how men should interact with their environment:
How can you buy or sell …
