I have always thought that Shakespeare was boring, and I still do. However, in reading The Tempest, I’ve learned there’s much more to Shakespeare than his hard to read plays. His writing showed me a form of rhetoric i’ve either never seen or never paid attention to. After reading The Tempest, I realize that there is so much to learn from just one play. You learn how language and situations play a bigger factor into rhetoric than just big bright text on a billboard.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, rhetoric is being used everyday. Rhetoric is used to keep people at home and off the streets. It’s also used to help the elderly in our community during this scary time. One way i’ve noticed rhetoric this week is in President Trump himself. His use of the term “Chinese virus” in place for Coronavirus is rhetoric that is detrimental to the Asian-American community. His diction allows ignorance to bloom and a severe increase in xenophobia.
Since last week, the United States became #1 on the list of COVID-19 cases worldwide. This is due to foolish Americans who ignore the stay-at-home rhetoric. I’ve personally used rhetoric this week to convince my parents to let me get a puppy. I first started with the fact that I will be home all day, everyday, due to COVID-19. I then added that social distancing has taken a toll on my mental health, so a distraction (like a puppy) would help me. It worked! By the end of the week, I had a german shepherd puppy named Gucci!
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