Using the Enthymeme through Images

In order to explore the meaning of an enthymeme, a person must use a medium that is persuasive. An enthymeme is different than a plain argument. It is a combination of statements that explicitly makes an argument while implicitly evoking the worldview within which the argument makes sense. To create an enthymeme, either a comic slip, slide show, or power point are good ways examine a topic in depth. An enthymeme is simply a techne of rhetoric, meaning an art or craft that is used to persuade. In order to use rhetoric techne well, the rhetor has to contribute to the on going conversation in which a community shapes, preserves, and changes. The enthymeme is imbedded within an argument. The argument is the assertion, where as the enthymeme gives the reader, audience, or listener the worldview of what the argument is trying to convey.

To explain and display an enthymeme, I chose to create a comic that states an argument, but overall expresses the worldview as a whole. The topic I decided to base my comic on is the broad environmental issues facing the human population today. The argument is that with increased population, there is greater environmental damage, including more waste, trash, pollution, roads, and sprawling urban areas. The worldview that the reader is meant to receive from the comic is that all people are impacting the environment, and this is especially noticeable in a crowded city. In order to find solutions, people must change how they live. People have to use specific techniques to improve the environment.

Another way of expressing an enthymeme is using juxtaposition. The five main parts to juxtaposition are repetition, symbolism, contextualize, analyze, and ironize. In the comic, several of these strategies of juxtaposition are used. Repetition is incorporated through the pictures. The comic begins with a picture of a father and daughter in a crowded city apartment and the comic ends with this same image. The word “Earth” is repeated to emphasize the overall theme. Symbolic pictures are also used in the comic. Contaminates of the Earth such as, waste, trash, pollution, and massive urban populations, are all depicted as black and white. This is to symbolize the destructiveness, ugliness, and unhealthiness of these items. The colored pictures represent the goodness of nature and that nature has brightness and beauty. This techne can also be considered a phronesis or “practical wisdom,” meaning that everyone in the world has some common knowledge of what is happening to the environment and that something has to be done about it. Finally, the pictures are used to analyze the argument and the enthymeme. The imagery reveals the underlying logic to the words that are placed in the different comic boxes. All of these strategies create a more persuasive enthymeme and the argument.