Question

How does Darrow use rhetoric in this excerpt to attempt to influence the sentence Leopold and Loeb will receive? For God's sake, are we crazy? In the face of history, of every line of philosophy, against the teaching of every religionist and seer and prophet the world has ever given us, we are still doing what our barbarous ancestors did when they came out of the caves and the woods!… Your honor, I am almost ashamed to talk about it. I can hardly imagine we are in the nineteenth or the twentieth century. And yet there are men who seriously say that for what nature has done, for what life has done, for what training has done, take the boys' lives. He uses rhetorical questions to encourage the judge and audience to imagine the childhood traumas Loeb and Leopold experienced. He uses direct address, speaking to the judge and the listening audience, to point out how easily they might find themselves in the same situation as Leopold and Loeb. Darrow uses charged language, such as “crazy” and “barbarous” and “ashamed” to persuade the judge and audience to reject the death penalty in spite of the horrible crime Leopold and Loeb committed. Darrow uses repetition (“for what nature has done, for what life has done) to emphasize that there are many justifications for why Loeb and Leopold behaved as they did.\

Answer 1

Darrow uses charged language, such as “crazy” and “barbarous” and “ashamed” to persuade the judge and audience to reject the death penalty in spite of the horrible crime Leopold and Loeb committed.

These types of words would hang in the audience's minds and appeal to their emotions. Using this type of language would make the audience think and hopefully persuade them to reject the death penalty.

Answer 2

Darrow uses charged language, such as “crazy” and “barbarous” and “ashamed” to persuade the judge and audience to reject the death penalty in spite of the horrible crime Leopold and Loeb committed.

Darrow appeals to people's emotions and reason or common sense by using those strong words to convey that taking Leopold and Loeb's lives is something completely barbarous, shocking and is against the century they are in and the teaching of every religious, and seer and prophet that has existed. In short, to kill the boys is totally wrong, and Darrow aims to persuade the judge and audience of that.