Repetition and parallelism are both used in Patrick Henry’s “Speech in the Virginia Convention” to persuade the colonies to declare war on Britain. Repetition, repeating the same phrases or words, is used throughout the speech to provide emphasis. One example of repetition Henry uses is when he says, “We must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!” (205). By persuading the colonists to go to war, he literally says the word “repeat” to show that repetition is present. The colonists start to buy into this statement of going to war from hearing it again and again, and they begin to believe the idea is their own. Moreover, Patrick Henry uses other examples of repetition in his speech to address his reasons for convincing the colonists to fight for their independence. A second example of repetition is when Patrick Henry proclaims, “Let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!” (206). Henry says that now is the time to go to war because the army is the strongest they can be. He uses repetition to show the colonies how important it is to declare war now, or they will be slaves of Britain. Both of these statements of repetition are used in Patrick Henry’s speech to help his overall purpose in persuading the colonies to declare war on the British.
In addition to repetition, parallelism is another persuasive device Patrick Henry uses to convince his audience to go to war against Britain. Henry uses the same grammatical structure in numerous statements throughout his speech. Also, he often uses logos or logical appeals through parallelism in his speech to strongly persuade his audience to fight. One example of parallelism is when Henry announces, “We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne” (204). This proclamation gives evidence of all the attempts for peace that the colonists try for but nothing works. Since the people's last resort is war, Henry utilizes the same grammatical structure in this statement to get the meaning across to the reader. Furthermore, Patrick Henry frequently uses pathos or emotional appeals to work together with parallelism to help persuade the audience to fight against Britain. “Give me liberty or give me death,” is another example of parallelism Henry uses in his speech (206). Patrick Henry uses emotional appeals through parallelism in this famous line to state that he would rather die than not be free. This appeal touches the reader to make him or her realize freedom is crucial to the colonists. These examples of parallelism help to achieve Patrick Henry’s goal of declaring war on Britain.