Mandy Aguiar, Spring 2010
In the 2006 version of All the King’s Men, Willie Stark was an honest man from Mason City Young who was running for governor of Louisiana. It seemed to Willie that despite his good intentions no one wanted to hear what he had to say. When speaking in front of an audience it is important to consider the best way to capture their attention. Willie Stark learned quickly that if he tailored his speech to his audience he would get the votes he needed to win. By using the figure of thought of being “one of the boys”, he built an appropriate ethos with the audience.
Cicero defined propriety as “what is fitting and agreeable to an occasion or person” (282). Gorgias’s notion of kairos was about “seizing the right moment to speak, the moment when listeners are ready to hear” (282). Willie Stark had a unique kairotic opportunity available only to him. His past involvement as a victim of corrupt politics set him apart from the other candidates. He and his audience shared a hatred for corrupt politics. By using that anger inside of him, he captured their attention. None of the other candidates had a similar experience that they could use to their advantage.
“According to Aristotle, rhetors can invent a character suitable to an occasion” (167). Outside of his hometown, Willie Stark was a nobody. He even complained to reporter Jack Burden that “the further and further he got from home the less people listened”. If he was going to win the election, he realized he would have to do something to stand out from the other candidates. He had to create a new persona that his crowd would remember. The most important aspect of his new image was that he was a fellow hick and knew exactly how the audience was feeling. “You are a hick ain’t nobody never help a hick but a hick himself” (Zaillian). By building his character as “one of the boys”, Stark created and developed an ethos with the audience members.
Ancient rhetors paid special attention to the clarity of their speech. They spoke in a manner that allowed their argument to “shine through”. Willie Stark’s first approach was to stand on stage with pie charts and try to explain complicated figures and use legal terms. When Jack Burden tells him that he is “saying too much”, Stark replies that he is only “telling them what they need to know: taxes, wages, and highways” (Zaillian). According to Crowley and Hawhee, “rhetors should always use language that is familiar to their audiences, even if this language is colloquial or jargon ridden” (281). Stark was presenting the “facts and figures” in jargon that his audience could not understand or was not interested in hearing about. Once he changed his speech to be clearer and right to the point, his argument was able to shine-through. Instead of showing them a graph, he tells his audience, “Look at the knees in your pants. Look at your crops. Look at your kids. You got holes, rots, and ignorant offspring on a count of this state”. He captures their attention by relating the information to issues that are important to the audience.
Every rhetorical situation has an appropriate rhetorical response. “The community dictates the standards of rhetorical appropriateness” (283). Willie knows his audience is made up of poor uneducated people. By using obscenities and speaking grammatically incorrect, he creates a connection with them. While giving his speech, he shifts back and forth from a middle style and plain style of language. “The plain style is appropriate when clarity is the main goal dictated by the occasion” (285). He told his audience, “You are a hick, and ain’t nobody never help a hick but a hick himself” (Zaillian). If Willie were speaking to a crowd of Jack Burden’s socialite family and friends this manner of speaking would be inappropriate since they are well educated and speak properly.
An important part of rhetorical discourse is the use of ornament within a speech. By including figures of speech, figures of thought, and tropes the argument constructed improves greatly. Willie Stark used these three elements in his election campaign to appeal to his audience. Figures of thought “involve artful changes in ideas, feelings, or conceptions; these figures depart from ordinary patterns of moving an argument along” (285). An example of figures of thought is enargeia, in which “a rhetor paints a picture of a scene so vividly that it seems to be happening right in front of the audience” (302). He begins by telling his audience he “had a speech but Mr. Duffy has it now in his fat hands”. Then he continues his speech by saying “ I got a story about a redneck hick just like yourselves if you please” and continue narrating his experience in third person. His vivid recounting attracts nearby people into stopping and listening to what he had to say.
Willie Stark also employs the use of tropes. A trope is “any substitution of one word or phrase for another” (285). While Willie is giving his new speech, he calls Mr. Duffy the Judas of the city. A very embarrassed Mr. Duffy tries to get off the stage and ends up falling into a pigpen. Stark yells, “Let him lie! Let that hog lie in his own filth!” In this case Mr. Duffy is substituted for a hog. Even the term hick that he uses over and over again is a trope. He changes the term from an insult to a position of power. He tells his audience that by voting for him they are placing themselves in a position of power because they are preventing themselves from being tricked into splitting the vote.
Delivery “was a matter of how the voice should be used in expressing each emotion. The expression of emotion could be altered by variations in volume, pitch, and rhythm” (333). In addition to the words of the campaign speech, the delivery was remarkable. Rather than speaking in a monotone voice, he varied his pitch. The introduction of the speech was calm and inviting. Occasionally, he would pause to allow his audience to consider what he had said. Then his voice would rise louder and until he was yelling, to demonstrate how upset he was. By returning to a calm tone, he maintained a dignified and subdued appearance. He was able to hold the attention of his audience visually as well. He pointed out Mr. Duffy, waved his arms around, and moved around the stage. His speech became more powerful with the addition of attending to the eyes and ears of the audience.
By using eloquent and elaborate elements of style, Willie Stark’s campaign speech became entirely different. He identified issues that affected him and his audience and used it to his advantage. Then used the figure of thought “one of the boys” to build his case for being elected. If Willie had never changed his style and delivery, he would have never become governor.
Works Cited
All the King’s Men. Dir. Steven Zaillian. Perf. Sean Penn, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins. 2006. DVD.
Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd ed. New
York: Pearson/Longman, 2004. Print