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Prompt: To persuade the audience, readers through perception and emotion, the art of persuasive discourse, what is General Hịch emphasizing.
Sample essay on persuading the audience, readers through perception and emotion, the art of persuasive discourse, what is General Hịch emphasizing
Essay:
Let's start by acknowledging this as a remarkable piece of writing, brimming with persuasive power. Analyzing the text requires grasping the genre characteristics of the essay.
What genre does this essay belong to?
An essay, in its essence, is a call to action from an authoritative figure to soldiers before a major battle. It involves urging, motivating, and stirring emotions, all while presenting compelling arguments. Thus, one must employ sharp reasoning to convince their audience. Simultaneously, it's crucial to appeal to emotions, stirring the hearts of listeners, leaving them unable to remain idle, but rather eager to leap into action.
Hung Dao Vuong's decree has indeed achieved high effectiveness on both fronts:
However, ultimately, what determines the aforementioned effectiveness of the essay is the righteousness of the call to action and the credibility of the writer.
This is a call to arms to defend the nation, addressing the sacred rights of the country and its citizens. It's about reconciling collective interests with individual ones, spiritual benefits with tangible material gains.
This is the call of a highly respected general, spoken from the heart of someone who has dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to the nation and its people. It's the voice of the nation's spirit through a noble soul, a voice of the homeland's glory and righteousness that no one dares to doubt.
1. Firstly, let's examine the rationale and argumentation of the decree.
a) The target audience of the decree is the military commanders.
The argument presented is: Being a military commander requires wholehearted dedication to the king, the country, and one's commanding officer; this is a truth. The author asserts the truth of this argument with a plethora of historical evidence. The more evidence there is, the more persuasive the argument becomes. These pieces of evidence are arranged chronologically, from the distant past to the present, to demonstrate their ubiquity over time and their relevance in contemporary society, not merely matters of ancient texts.
'You, descendants of martial families, may not understand the nuances of literature; you listen to those stories with doubt and suspicion. Let's leave the past behind; I won't dwell on that. Today, I'll only recount recent stories about the Song and Yuan dynasties.
b) From the general standpoint regarding the qualifications of military personnel, the author conveys their thoughts.
Here, the righteousness of the decree is emotionally affirmed. Nguycn's envoys insult the court, oppress my king, extort from me greedily, undoubtedly leading to invasion. Faced with this situation, the prime minister is deeply distressed, humiliated, tirelessly strategizing against the enemy, preferring death over losing the nation.
But is this solely a matter of the court, the rights of the king, the royal family, and the nobles? No, it is not. The decree asserts a tight unity between the interests of the court, the ruler, and the interests of the military commanders: 'You, who have served by my side for a long time, if your clothes are worn, I'll provide new ones; if you have no food, I'll give you rice; if you're low-ranking, I'll promote you; if your salary is low, I'll supplement it...' Note the phrase 'for a long time.' It implies a longstanding, strong, and highly reliable relationship between the king and I, the ruler and the commanders, comparable to the ideal master-servant relationship in heroic tales from the East (such as how Vương Công Kiên treated his generals, or Đãi Ngột Lang treated his loyal aides).
c) Now, the argument: to be a military commander requires wholehearted dedication to the ruler is fully affirmed not just as a general truth but as the current imperative, under my king, Trần dynasty's ruler, facing imminent foreign invasion.
And so the issue at hand is to enact that imperative. The decree shifts to a tone that is both mournful and urgent, evoking incredibly dire and tragic consequences if unable to withstand foreign invaders, while also cynically taunting and prodding the 'spirit of the commanders', deliberately puncturing their pride, dignity, and sense of honor, characteristic of the renowned Tran military spirit with its 'Eastern vigor' and the resolute attitude exemplified in the Dien Hong conference:
'Now you sit idly by, oblivious to disgrace, lacking in both reason and feeling - primarily feeling - because deducing reason leads to the matter of fighting to save the nation, the home, oneself, what is there to debate?
3. The decree is not only persuasive through reason and argumentation. Ultimately, as mentioned above, its mission is primarily to impact through emotion. This is a literary period that sees a clear distinction between historical and philosophical literature, and artistic literature, emotional and imaginative literature with rhetorical, political, and philosophical discourse.
Regarding genre, the decree is both a persuasive argument (using logic, evidence, and reasoning) and an artistic work, using imagery and emotion to persuade.
Thus emerges in the essay, supported by reasons, the grand persona of Tran Hung Dao.
He was a hero with a big heart. A heart filled with immense love for the nation and its people. This is a heart of immense pain, intense hatred, profound shame. A heart boiling with passion:
'I often forget to eat, tossing and turning at midnight with a stomach ache like being cut, tears streaming, only hatred not yet vented, flesh not yet peeled, liver not yet eaten, blood of the enemy not yet drunk. Even if this body were left exposed to the grass, even if these thousand corpses were wrapped in horsehide, I would still be content.
- He was an extremely benevolent general, attached to his soldiers, his subordinates, with a deep-rooted affection, like the love between father and son in a family. 'If you have no clothes, I'll provide them; if you have no food, I'll give you rice (...) in battle, we live and die together (...) witnessing disgrace without shame. Serving the court, facing the enemy without anger; hearing flattery without disdain (...) if the Mong Thát enemy floods over, even if the rooster's spur pierces through the enemy's armor, and gambling tricks cannot be used as military strategy.' By then, 'not only will my family suffer, but your wives and children will also be miserable; not only will my ancestors' graves be trampled, but your ancestors' graves will also be disturbed. Not only will this generation endure disgrace, but even a hundred generations later, the stain of disgrace and the name of defeat will linger, and even your descendants will carry the stigma of defeated generals. Now, even if you could enjoy happiness, would it be worth it?'
d) 'Provoking the commanders' is the essence to prompt action. But enthusiasm alone is not enough. There must be thorough preparation, knowing how to use the military, and training soldiers well. Therefore, the decree concludes by specifying the tasks to be done: studying and training soldiers according to the Binh Thu Yeu Luoc. To emphasize the importance of studying this book, the author considers it a standard for decisively distinguishing enemies:
'If you understand the teachings in this book according to my instructions, then you must despise those who disregard my teachings, which is tantamount to inviting enmity.
Overall, the decree's argument progresses from general to specific, from conceptual resolution, emotional arousal to gradually practical and specific actions. The argument also employs compelling, unequivocal constraints, whether at home laughing together...'
He was a resolute and steadfast commander, determined to fight, determined to win, believing in himself, believing in his soldiers, as evidenced in the torrential prose, with assertive, relentless clauses, leaving no room for doubt, no room for denial or hesitation. Hesitation is akin to siding with the enemy, betraying, disgracing, unworthy of living: 'To us, the enemy is an unredeemable foe. You calmly refuse to wash away disgrace, fail to eliminate evil, neglect to teach soldiers...
