Tragic Perspective: Crafting Powerful Messages to Tackle Social Issues - Essay Sample

Introduction

While making a speech, one can decide to either use a comic frame or a tragic perspective to make his/her point. The idea is to make the message more appealing and impactful so that it can fulfill its intended purpose. In most of the cases, a tragic perspective will tend to provide a scapegoat to the public to escape guilt feeling to raise a concern to the more significant social issue. This perspective is mostly used by the media, such as in the case of a young boy who had a gun and managed to shoot 26 young children at school. By using tragedy perspective, the media can be in a position to raise a more significant social issue such as gun control. However, this same event can also be presented in a comic frame. For the event to be framed as comic, the media framed the shooter in this case as an innocent and a good young person, and hence the blame should be taken from his parent divorce which resulted to autism disorder. The aspect of tragedy and the comic frame has been applied in various speeches both of them to achieve the intended objective. In this essay, I am going to analyze the speech by Elizabeth Eddy, which utilizes a tragic perspective and also and the speech by sojourner to evaluate opportunities and constraints created by each.

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Creating awareness is one of the opportunities that result from using a comic frame while trying to deliver a point. By using a comic frame, the sojourner was able to bring awareness of how the right of black women is always ignored as if they are not women. Her first claim was that white men claim that there is a need for women to be lifted over ditches. However, there is no had ever bothered to help her even over mud-puddles, yet she is also a woman. "That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?" (Phillips-Anderson, 2013). The comic frame has been applied in this statement, and it is critical in helping to create awareness about the inequality that exists between white and black women.

The other thing is that a comic frame has an opportunity to prove that humanity is generally good only that it has been flawed. This implies that human beings are inherently good, but they have been corrupted by certain aspects that make them lack perfection. For example, in her speech, the sojourner first show that humanity is good when she said "That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere" (Phillips-Anderson, 2013). Never the less, she also used it to show that humanity lacks perfection by pointing out that they discriminate women from minority groups.

By showing that humanity is inherently good, one can have an opportunity to use a comic frame to find support from the audience. In her speech, sojourner truth speech attempted to appeal to the public to show their humanity when she said "all the friends of Reform, in whatever department engaged, we say-Come, give us your presence and counsel . . . . Slavery, political and personal, will crush humanity " (Phillips-Anderson, 2013). The aim of using such appeal is to show the people that they have a role in ensuring that they support the wellbeing of their fellow human being regardless of their race.

However, the use of the comic frame during a speech may also have some constraint to the person giving an address. One of the limitations is that one is expected only to tell the truth. Diverting the fact while using the comic frame as may make the message to be taken less serious by the audience. "While she was not alone in her quest to bring about change, Truth was often the only black female to speak at these events" (Phillips-Anderson, 2013). To ensure that the audience entirely agrees and see sense on what she was talking about, it was vital for her to provide as much proof as possible to convince the audiences to make them agree with her perspective for most of them held different views. "As she spoke about abolition and woman's rights, she addressed audiences that were often mixed in their disposition toward her beliefs and her participation in the events" (Phillips-Anderson, 2013).

One of the opportunities of using a tragic perspective in a speech is that it helps to create awareness of a specific social issue. In the statement that was given by Elizabeth Cady, use of tragedy perspective effectively allowed her to raise awareness of the need for women to be given equal rights. For example, she uses it to show how domestic women duties affects their rights but not to men, which can be dangerous and need to be addressed. "In discussing the sphere of man we do not decide his rights as an individual, as a citizen, as a man by his duties as a father, a husband, a brother, or a son, relations some of which he may never fill" (Hogan, 2014). With this, she can show how unequal treatment of men and women disadvantage women in all areas of life.

The other thing is that use of tragic in a speech can also help to show some social responsibility that has been ignored. In her address, Elizabeth uses tragedy perspective to show that the government has been failing to empower women for them to assure equal opportunity in society. She portrays the government as being faulty since it doesn't fulfill its responsibility. "The education that will fit her to discharge the duties in the largest sphere of human usefulness will help best t her for whatever special work she may be compelled to do" (Hogan, 2014). This allows her to show the need for women representative in the government to can address the issues that women usually face.

The shortcoming of using a tragic perspective is that it can sometimes seem exaggerated. Besides, it also provides a scapegoat to the public and points the finger only to a particular course of a specific issue which might not be the case. For example, in the speech that was given by Elizabeth, most of the blame has been directed to the government and men while there are other factors such as stereotyping which lead to women inequality in the society (Hogan, 2014).

Both tragic perspective and comic frame are essential tools that can be used to gain appeal to the audience. However, both of them might have some opportunities as well as a shortcoming. To me, the technique that I resonate with is a comic frame. This is because a comic method can effectively win the support of the audience since it usually emphasizes the idea that human beings are inherently good. This kind of appeal will make people feel the need and responsibility as a human being to end social injustices.

References

Phillips-Anderson, M. (2013). SOJOURNER TRUTH," ADDRESS AT THE WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION IN AKRON, Ohio,"(29 MAY 1851).

Hogan, L. S. (2014). ELIZABETH CADY STANTON,"THE SOLITUDE OF SELF"(JANUARY 18, 1892). Voices of Democracy, 8, 23-41.