Matthew Borelli

Kylliki Rytov
ENC 2135
SRR: Bitzer
The reading from Lloyd Bitzer discusses how rhetoric is classified and
what components decide its classification as rhetoric. He describes in detail
the three main components of rhetoric, which are exigence, audience, and
constraints. An exigence is some form or problem or negative situation that
is marked by urgency. Samples used in the reading include the JFK
assassination, the Civil War, and even the simple desire to catch a fish. The
audience obviously refers to who the speaker is writing for, but Bitzer
includes more details about how that changes the rhetoric. Since he
describes rhetoric as speech or ideas that would charge people to respond,
Bitzer clearly defines that the audience of a rhetorical speech must be apt to
respond, and the type of response they might use changes the piece. Finally,
the constraints of a rhetorical situation are the different objects surrounding
a situation that have the power to constrain thought, such as beliefs,
traditions, and motives.
My initial response to this was confusion, and then understanding. As I
was reading through the paper, I kept finding myself asking, What is
rhetoric? However, by the time I made it to the end of the paper, I realized
that rhetoric refers to writing and speech that tries to enact some sort of
change in the audience. This even includes missed situations to make those
statements, as they were still rhetorical situations not used correctly. The
information in the paper was dense, but once the author started using
examples, it became much clearer to me.

I found the section on constraints to be very interesting, because that

is a sometimes unseen phenomenon that can completely uproot the original
meaning of any rhetoric. Without knowing everyones motivations and beliefs
regarding a situation, there is no way to accurately predict what the outcome
of a piece of rhetoric will truly be.