Save the Children

The textbook defines enargeia as the "figure in which rhetors picture events so vividly that they seem actually to be taking place before the audience." An online textbook defines it as "a rhetor's goal of arousing the passions within the audience to move them to act". This online textbook also references the Save the Children campaign and its use of enargeia.

Save the Children is a charity dedicated to enabling children caught in political turmoil and establishing long term recovery programs. I'm not sure how appropriate it is to parallel images and enargeia, but I will try to do so anyway. I found dozens of images from the Save the Children campaign that shook me. Here are some of them:

I believe that these images capture enargeia. They are packed with raw emotion, heartbreak, and fear. They are terrifying. These pictures absolutely arouse passion. They evoke incredible emotions and paint vivid pictures (literally) to the audience of turmoil. These photographs and the Save the Children campaign exercise the use of enargeia to bring to light tragic realities in the minds of a person.

In class this week, we focused a lot on advertisements of companies trying to convince a consumer to buy their product. I think there is an opportunity for deeper analysis of advertisements from charities. Save the Children is one of countless examples of these charities. This organization publishes photos in magazine ads and creates commercials to raise awareness. Save the Children uses enargeia to present striking photographs of children in need. This campaign is successful in a way that is different from the ads we analyzed in class. Becoming aware of the importance of Save the Children will motivate an audience to give to a cause; while promoting a product in an advertisement will simply motivate an audience to buy a product.

Photo sources: Save the Children