The word Rhetoric simply means the art of using persuasive language. The word rhetoric was first used by ancient Greeks and Roman writers in the middle ages. During those days the word meant the art of using language effectively to influence and persuade others. Another rhetoric meaning was personification in the beginning of 1400 DC. During 1450 the word rhetoric was used as a treatise on the theory and practice of rhetoric frequently used now as the tittle of the treatise by Aristotle. The word was then adopted by roman catholic schools to infer for a senior class from 1599 (Herrick, 2017) . Additionally, from 1783 the word rhetoric meant literary prose composition. Other historical meaning includes, elegance of language, ironic blunt or crude speech, skill of using persuasive and eloquent language, compositional techniques to produce desired effect on a viewer such as music dance and visual arts.
Rhetoric is based in persuasion but what is seen a rhetoric is actually manipulation. Psychological manipulation is a form of social influence aiming in change of perception and behaviors through deception and even abuse of power. In ancient Greece sophists manipulated truth for financial gain. Plato and Aristotle convicted Sophist for relying on people’s emotion to persuade the audience for their disregard for truth. During the middle ages rhetoric shifted from political to religious believes. Instead of rhetoric being a tool to lead the state it was manipulated by church fathers to save souls and persuade the non-believers (Herrick, 2017) . Additionally, Romans were manipulated by incorporating many rhetorical elements established by Greeks. Writers and Orators in ancient Rome were influenced by riveting stories, stylistic flourishes, fascinating metaphors and less on reasonable meaning than their ancient Greek colleagues.
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Although rhetoric and manipulation use persuasive language, their application depends on the person’s intension. Rhetoric use persuasion for the benefit of the audience while manipulation use persuasion to one’s own benefit. Positive rhetorical manipulation in scenarios such as in nonprofit organization and NGO’s when they use persuasion to attract donor’s, raise finances and create awareness on humanitarian assistance. Negative manipulation can be seen in organizations and industries when management exploit workers by persuading them to work hard while they are exploiting them. Consequently, negative manipulation is seen when politicians give promises on good governance and when elected they end misappropriating public funds.
In Allegory of the Cave evil manipulation is seen when shadows puppets, are manipulated to cast shadow on the wall at which the prisoners vision is directed. Similarly, it is through the shadows that the prisoners are manipulated into taking shadow for reality. The prisoners mind in manipulated to think that any sound made came from one of them and would think that everything is a shadow displayed on the wall (Schilperoord & Weelden, 2018) . Consequently, the unchained prisoner mind is manipulated with painful blindness, the brightness of the fire causes the prisoners eyes great pain and discomfort and he is worried if he decides to leave he will never see the shadows.
After the escape, the prisoner can now learn new skills he thought never existed. He is able to figure out thing about the solar system, he understands seasons and years and realizes that sun made everything visible inside the cave. The prisoner return to the cave is a sign of good rhetorical manipulation to come and shed light to the other prisoners and persuade them how the outside world is good (Schilperoord & Weelden, 2018) .
The rhetorical questions Plato ask help him in persuading the audience. The use of rhetorical questions enables Socrates to explain the situation prisoners are in. An example is when Socrates ask Glaucon how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed even to move their head. Using rhetorical questions Socrates is able to manipulate the audience to agree on everything he says (Schilperoord & Weelden, 2018) . This allows good association between the speaker and the audience which is important to the speaker who’s his purpose is to persuade. With the use good rhetoric manipulation, the audience are able to get the true meaning of the Allegory of the Cave.
Reference
Herrick, J. A. (2017). The history and theory of rhetoric: An introduction . Routledge.
Schilperoord, J., & van Weelden, L. (2018). Rhetorical shadows: The conceptual representation of incongruent shadows. Spatial Cognition & Computation , 18 (2), 97-114.
