Critical Standard of Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address and Essay

Critical Standard of Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address and - Essay Example With this argument, he was able to make a case for the necessity of having both North and South work to clean up the damage left behind by war. Although the speech is widely recognized as a rhetorical device, it is not always clearly expressed what exactly comprises a rhetorical device. In other words, while experts claim the speech is rhetorical, they don’t define why it is rhetorical – what elements are required in order to classify a speech as rhetorical. Understanding the rhetorical structure of Lincoln’s speech requires first understanding rhetoric. In attempting to understand just what elements should be looked for or understood as a means of identifying rhetoric, it is helpful to examine the field of rhetorical study. One theorist, Lloyd Bitzer, provides a relatively straight-forward answer regarding how to identify rhetoric by suggesting there are three essential components – exigence, audience and a set of constraints. The first component of Bitzer’s theory regarding rhetoric is the concept of exigence. The American Heritage Dictionary defines this term as â€Å"the condition of being in need of immediate assistance; a condition in which something necessary or desirable is required or wanted; a decisive point; something asked for or needed† (â€Å"Exigence†, 2003). In his theory, Bitzer explains that exigence refers to any situation in which there is â€Å"an imperfection marked by urgency; it is a defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which is other than it should be† (Bitzer, 1968: 7). In other words, something is supposed to happen and it doesn’t, creating an urgent need for communication to resolve the issue. On the other hand, this could also refer to a situation in which something has happened that shouldn’t have happened, again creating the necessity for effective