Proplepsis, which is pronounced as pro-lep-ses is similar to hypophora. However, it differs in that no question needs to be asked for the objection to be answered. The device has the advantage of making it possible for the speaker to name the objections of opponents and thus take some of the sting out them.
What is prolepsis?
Prolepsis is a rhetorical device where the speaker anticipates an objection to their argument and answers it directly. Our first example of this rhetorical device is from W.E.B Dubois. Dubois disagreed vehemently with Booker T Washington on the solution to what was termed “the Negro Problem.”
The question was on how African Americans after slavery could progress from the poverty and lack of rights inherited from slavery and their continued oppression.
Booker T. Washington argued that Black Americans should focus on developing skills in agriculture and the trades in the meantime and focus less on civil rights and higher education equal to that of White Americans. W.E.B Du Bois argued that African Americans should demand immediate civil rights and equality in education.
He made his argument in his book, The Souls of Black Folks (1903):
. . . It has been claimed that the Negro can survive only through submission. Mr. Washington distinctly asks that black people give up, at least for the present, three things,— First, political power, Second, insistence on civil rights, Third, higher education of Negro youth,—and concentrate all their energies on industrial education, and accumulation of wealth, and the conciliation of the South.
This policy has been courageously and insistently advocated for over fifteen years, and has been triumphant for perhaps ten years. As a result of this tender of the palm-branch, what has been the return? In these years there have occurred: 1. The disfranchisement of the Negro. 2. The legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro. 3. The steady withdrawal of aid from institutions for the higher training of the Negro.
These movements are not, to be sure, direct results of Mr. Washington’s teachings; but his propaganda has, without a shadow of doubt, helped their speedier accomplishment. The question then comes: Is it possible, and probable, that nine millions of men can make effective progress in economic lines if they are deprived of political rights, made a servile caste, and allowed only the most meagre chance for developing their exceptional men? If history and reason give any distinct answer to these questions, it is an emphatic No.
Dubois uses prolepsis to first introduce and carefully delineate Washington’s position before he begins to dismantle it by showing how it has failed.
Examples of prolepsis
1. Trollope, North America (1862):
It will be said that the American cars are good enough for all purposes. The seats are not very hard, and the room for sitting is sufficient. Nevertheless I deny that they are good enough for all purposes. They are very long, and to enter them and find a place often requires a struggle and almost a fight.
In the excerpt by Trollope above, he is imagining hypothetical objections to his argument that American cars are good enough for all purposes.
2. Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (1936):
So we go on preparing more months and years — precious, perhaps vital to the greatness of Britain — for the locusts to eat. They will say to me, 'A Minister of Supply is not necessary, for all is going well.' I deny it. 'The position is satisfactory.' It is not true. 'All is proceeding according to plan.' We know what that means.
Churchill here is listing objection after objection for him to effectively refute.
3. Lincoln, speech at Galena (1856):
You further charge us with being Disunionists. If you mean that it is our aim to dissolve the Union, for myself I answer, that is untrue; for those who act with me I answer, that it is untrue. Have you heard us assert that as our aim? Do you really believe that such is our aim? Do you find it in our platform, our speeches, our conversation, or anywhere? If not, withdraw the charge.
Prolepis can naturally be combined with hypophora and erotema to good effective, as these three rhetorical devices are similar to each other. This is what Lincoln does here in the preceding passage.
References
Farnsworth, W. (2010). Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric. David R. Godine. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/prolepsis
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, October 22). Prolepsis. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/prolepsis |
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