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Critical Study Of Text – Speeches

Socrates – ‘No evil can happen’:
- Direct address – ‘thou dost wrong to think…’   Socrates uses this technique in the opening of his speech to immediately engage his audience and capture their attention – hence drawing them into the speech.
- Antithetical opposites – ‘right/wrong; good/bad; life/death.’   These polemic opposites are all employed in the opening paragraph.   They draw out the essential moral issue of the speech.   They are effective because it makes direct comparisons between diverse concepts and places emphasis on the good side (which Socrates aligns himself with.)
- Hypothetical questions – Socrates poses hypothetical questions and then answers them for his audience.   This allows Socrates to tell his audience his opinions without being to up front.
- Self aggrandising – this is evident consistently throughout the speech.   Socrates is placing himself on a higher level than his audience, and attempting to convince the court of his perspective.   His arrogance in this regard is not welcomed by the court.   The self aggrandising tone of the piece helps Socrates to persuade by putting himself in a positive light and shifting the blame onto the Athenian people.
- Imperatives – ‘Be not angry at me…’   Socrates employs imperatives throughout his speech, and they serve to make the oration much more emotive.
- Repetition – ‘I’ ‘Me’.   Repetition of these words highlight the personal struggle which Socrates is going through.   These repetitions also add to the self aggrandising nature of the speech.
- Metaphor – ‘…reaping the largest possible harvest of wealth and honour and glory.’   The metaphors which Socrates employs once again add to the emotive tone of the piece.
- Simile – ‘as a kind of gadfly to a big generous horse.’   This particular extract is somewhat simpler than the rest of the speech.   In this case, Socrates is appealing to a wide audience base – the common people of Athens.
- Alignment with gods – ‘So god bids, and I consider that never has a...