The prompt for this post is to look at Lloyd F. Bitzer’s, The Rhetorical Situation and to apply his definition of rhetorical situation, exigence, audience, and constraint to a rhetorical situation from my life.
My sister, Avery, is in her last year of high school. Around this time of year is when the hunt for prom dress begins and if you have any experience with shopping for a formal dress, you are aware of how stressful and time consuming it can be. As soon as a dress is found, alterations will need to start along with finding the perfect accessories. This is a lot to get done within a few months, especially in between Avery participating in two sports, working, school, and my younger brother’s extracurricular activities; both of my parents have their hands full. My mother and I were dragged along from boutique to boutique by Avery in her search for a prom dress. She was in search of a unique dress to ensure that she won’t have the same dress as another girl attending the same prom. We ended up driving up to a dress boutique in Columbus, where she fell in love with a red dress. However, “we” (meaning my mother) weren’t all agreeing that it was the right dress.
Avery did all she could to persuade our mother that this was the dress. She began pointing out all the different features of the dress and how they are the exact features they both discussed they were looking for in her dress. The exigence in this situation- or the reason Avery spoke out is because of the urgency for her to find a dress since she doesn’t have a lot of free time to go dress shopping. This particular boutique is about two hours away from home and we weren’t going to have an opportunity to go back if she didn’t find a dress.
The audience to Avery’s grand persuasion was my mother and I, but me and Avery were audience to my mother as well. Avery was trying to influence our mom to agree to the dress while our mom was trying to influence the two of us against the dress. Avery’s persuasion came through in the end because she was finally able to convince our mom to see that the red dress was the right one for her.
The constraint of the situation is my mother. She is the one who is ultimately paying for the dress which gives her all the power to enforce her decision on saying no to the dress. However, Avery also constrains our mom because our mom wants Avery to love the dress she chooses, and Avery loves this red dress. In the end we purchased the red dress.
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