Assignment One: Rhetorical Analysis of a Documentary Film

The rhetorical effect of ‘pray the devil back to hell’ has been an integration of

pathos, logos, and ethos. To begin with, the first and one of the main story teller in

this documentary has been one of those survived the hard-living condition of the

Liberian, where tyrant and terrorists were out of law and ruined every family. Vivid

descriptions and emotionally loaded languages bring audience back to that world, in

which women and men are humiliated and killed very often. Informed opinions from

Washington Post and other mainstream media have reported the evil president in

power and his inaction in Liberia. Next, how come the children’s situation over that

time, and what has caused the endless war in the eye of the civilian. The film began

with the children in Liberia, without food but fear, or carrying with the gun of the

same height with them, and some of them are fed on drugs. According to the claim of

a female activist, “nothing should make people do what they have done to the children

in Liberia.” Therefore, I suppose that if the idea that children are the future of a

nation, the director may have manifested the situation to the audience at the very

beginning of the documentary. It is said that the war there is between the rich and the

poor, the hatred and ethnic groups. Still by the choice of the violators exemplified in

the film, what can be clarified for the rest is that it is a war for natural resources.

The for this film is people who are concerned about race relations including

whites and blacks, and other minorities.

potential audience can find truth in those obstacles and female activities. As

demonstrated in the film, the headline of a press that the tyrant we are too willing to
live with, implying the president who had forced people to elect him, and who had

been closely working with terrorists like al Qaeda and Hezbollah. And other facts

disclosed in mainstream media from America have been strikingly similar, including

the coverage and shoots of the civilian and children lost their legs without accidents,

yet no girls or women are able to protect themselves. What is worse, the president

gained sole control of the national finance to put diamonds in his own pocket, while

left others in this country could not afford rice, and those fact are not only emotional

resonance for audience to feel sympathy, but also foreshadowing women’s activities

organized soon.

Another clip in this documentary with two bulks of folks in the scene must have

impressed the audience by a comparison of some people armed and transported by

truck, and others stood alone on the road alarmingly. The idea of fear in the film has

been clear on both of their faces and the theme of that period, and neither side of them

were able to break the balance, however, women activities in Liberia have made the

peace talk significantly. To emphasize the civilian's situation and ring the audience's

sympathy, the author has introduced a series of images of a burial ground, and above

them are callings of peace and missing painted in black, which people were dared to

speak out. At the same time, the ethos has been transmitted to the audience by way of

the convincible recollection of the speaker, saying that over the days most of them

would pray before asleep: "Could I have something different the next day?". The

quotation have been quite thought-provoking for audience to understand women’s

incentives for a gathering at church to pray for peace, and that can also be linked to
the rhetorical situation of the coffin scrawled, and limited elements have symbolized

the context of Liberia by extremes, pray or death. I assume that the successful church

gathering had brought people delight and belief, according to the assistant director of

the documentary, and the film has revealed the initial process of women activities,

being influential and effective.

Furthermore, when women continue to gather for peace, men are massed for

fortune, power, and recklessness. Among several women interviewed, one of them

was a victim, and she said that the men rape women in front of their family just

because they have guns. Misery never came along on that land, and one of the true

stories in the film has drawn tears of both the speaker and the audience, about a wife

who was forced to witness men raping her child and killing her husband.

The outcome of that regretful period has been forecasted in the film with voice is

of sorrow reflecting pathos when women were assembling for peace: Can the bullet

pick and choose? Does the bullet know Christian from Muslim? The answer to the

question ended with a young child staring at the camera lens, with blank looking on

his face. Such an ingenious arrangement is as remarkable as those figurative

languages for audience to imply the efficiency of the female activities in different

phases.
 References:

Edited by Kate Taverna and Meg Reticker. Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Gini, R.

and Abigail, D. 2017.