Repetition and Parallelism

It’s no secret that repetition makes ideas stick. Many times, when leaders in the Iliad want to arouse an emotion and a sense of togetherness in a crowd in order to persuade them to join together and do something, they don’t just repeat ideas, but the structuring of those ideas.

For example, when Ulysses hears “any common man” speaking up, he says to them:

“…You are a coward and no soldier; you are nobody either in fight or council; we cannot all be kings; it is not well that there should be many masters; one man must be supreme—one king to whom the son of scheming Saturn has given the scepter of sovereignty over you all.”

Ulysses could’ve just said, “Shut up. You’re a nobody,” as this would've served a similar purpose in using ad hominem speech as Jared talked about in his post, but that would not have been nearly as effective as pointing out what a common man isn’t, and then repeating what that means more specifically, showing the commoner his place in society and then shutting him down by further stating that that place has no voice especially compared to another with power.

We can compare this to monologues in movies and speeches given during political campaigns. For instance, near the beginning of Obama’s inaugural speech, he repeats the words “Together, we…” when listing three statements that make America unique.

 He does this to foster a feeling of, well, togetherness. He does this to unite himself with the people. He does this to give himself the power to persuade—to set up what he’s planned to say to his country. We all do this because it draws people in to what is being said—because it works.