Simple and to the point, Smith’s definition of rhetoric is one that every reader can understand. However, as her text progresses, its purpose shifts and expands to include a variety of different views on rhetoric. By offering varying opinions on the topic, it seems as though Smith wants to provide us with its many different facets so that we may come to our own conclusions and definitions…but that is not necessarily what she is doing. What Smith communicates is her belief that rhetoric, in its best form, “enhances” “truth” and “beauty.” She throws this in, a little more than halfway down the page, and then sandwiches it under bullet points headed by words like “deny” and “defame.” But this statement is neither denial or defamation of rhetoric, it exemplifies the beauty of it. Therefore, I think that at the heart of her argument, Smith uses our emotions to persuade us into believing, I gather, what she believes is the best form and function of rhetoric: one which “enhances” “truth” and “beauty.” She wants the reader to believe this too, as she strategically places it at the center of her text without explicitly placing it in her defintion.
Hayley Annino
