Confessions of a Persuasive Nature

The use of rhetoric as mimesis was most apparent in the play as a whole. If I had just been watching the play, without thinking about the rhetorical devices, I would have thought the person who played Hecuba was the most melodramatic actress I had ever seen. However, while thinking about what the play was trying to evoke through rhetoric, I was able to appreciate the script and acting as a powerful expression of emotion. In the play’s plot Hecuba realized the way language can imitate human suffering when she tried to persuade Agamemnon to join her cause by appealing to the pain he had felt in the past and what he might feel in the future. She tells Polyxena to do the same when appealing to Odysseus. She tells her daughter, “He has children too” in order to express that she may be able to appeal to his sympathy when she talks to him.

The use of rhetorical language meant to persuade was very prevalent in the play through the role of Hecuba, especially when Polymestor was on trial for his deeds and Hecuba was defending herself. This form of language is more difficult to find in the play as a whole because persuasion is most evident in a conversation. I think that Euripides used the power of language to persuade the audience to like Hecuba, or at least feel bad for her. If the first part of the play was the scene where she killed the two little boys the audience would not feel like she was justified; even after her actions were explained with her back story. However, by providing the story and Hecuba’s monologues first, the audience may not have seen her end actions as repulsive as they might have been perceived without the backstory.