i have specialised in goldman as well, for my HSC last year
if you need some DETAILED help with goldman, please PM or email me!
IE i dont want to disclose ALL MY work on goldman to other people, on the forums, unless on extreme circumstances.
however i am being VERY VERY VERY generous in providing you with this:
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Like Socrates, Goldman is faced with a jury deeply opposed to her views, this time of anarchism. Like Socrates, she uses logic and reasoning to build a complex case, also employing highly evocative epideictic rhetoric, working hand in hand to support her argument for anarchism on top of her own trial defence. Her speeches’ key ingredient to expose the inherent flaws of the conservative government and argue for free speech is by taking the audience on a guilt trip.
She effectively uses sarcasm to illustrate the government’s blind actions to arrest her and Berkman. The “big fish” metaphor clearly “all that labour was so much wasted energy” discredits the actions of the government, attacking the narrow-mindedness of the law. She uses the precedence of the revolutions of France, Russia and America to support her views of anarchism, and venomously attacks the law, metaphorically being “stationary, fixed, mechanical, ‘a chariot wheel’ which grinds all alike…” highlighting the stagnant, narrow nature of the law. She argues anarchism is parallel with progress “Progress knows nothing of fixity…never is it within the law”. She argues there is the need for the political criminal – “the political criminal of today must needs be the hero, the martyr and the saint of the new age.”
She attacks the narrow-mindedness of the jury by appealing to their patriotism, “we respect your patriotism”, but lashes out “but may there not be different kinds of patriotism as well…”, one that is “enchanted by her (USA’s) beauty, yet he (patriotism) sees her faults.”, a subtle barb that compromises the integrity of the jury’s bigoted ideology of patriotism. She calls into question the state of American democracy, that “shall free speech and free press and free assemblage” continue to be the heritage of the American people,” or “shall it be a mere shadow of the past?”, the compounding anaphora and language techniques continue to humiliate the jury, peppering rhetorical questions at them, backing them into a corner, unable to respond to her compounding logic.
In the end, she has an altruistic tone, that “no matter your verdict gentlemen, it cannot possibly affect the rising tide of discontent in this country”. Her bold tone in echoing Luther’s words “Here I am and here I stand and I cannot do otherwise” emphasised the need for people to stand up to their beliefs and to criticise the people in power to be honest. Her special ingredients of the guilt trip combined with democracy, patriotism, and charged with emotive language and venomous reasoning creates a seemingly invincible argument that she cannot lose. Again, like Socrates, her ideals of free speech still ring today, enshrined in the United Nations.
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