40 Unique Rhetorical Analysis Essay Topics

When it comes to rhetorical analysis, you are looking at something and analyzing its effect on you and its audience. While many times a rhetorical analysis essay is about a piece of literature or a speech, it can be about a piece of art or a movie. You might even do a rhetorical analysis of a commercial or billboard. However, to create an effective rhetorical analysis essay, you need to make sure that you have enough information available to analyze it.

When choosing a topic for a rhetorical essay, choose a topic you are interested in. It should also have enough information for you to use in the essay. Popular topics to choose are famous poems, speeches, movies, art, literature, etc.

Rhetorical analysis topics can go beyond just famous presidents and Mel Gibson in Braveheart. Explore these unique rhetorical analysis topics that cover current events, art, and movies.

1. “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” from Ted Talk or another interesting TedTalk topic
2. “A Starry Night” by Van Gogh
3. The Dove Real Beauty campaign
4. Speech from President Trump
5. The movie The Blind Side
6. The meaning behind Mona Lisa’s smile
7. A blog that you are passionate about
8. A billboard that made you think
9. A popular song
10. Rachel Platten’s Fight Song
11. BBC World “See Both Sides of the Story” Billboard
12. Controversial Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso
13. The rhetoric used by your favorite product’s campaign

Topics lists are full of rhetorical analysis topics covering Shakespeare’s Hamlet and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. However, to make your essay truly memorable, you might want to give these literary topics a try.

1. An impactful new writer
2. The Hunger Games vs The Lottery
3. How different writers define heroism
4. Use of symbolism Harry Potter series
5. Animal Farm
6. Meaning in the book I am the Cheese
7. Importance of theme of hope in literature
8. Issues of race and prejudice as the theme in a current novel
9. The importance symbolism plays in novels
10. Rhetorical strategies used in your favorite novel
11. Feminism and Louisa May Alcott
12. Literary devices used by Jane Austen
13. Symbolism in The Things They Carried

When it comes to rhetorical analysis essays, it’s easy to jump on the bandwagon of Martin Luther King Jr. However, if you want a truly unique rhetorical analysis essay, look beyond the obvious to these unique and current speech topics.

1. Bob Dylan’s “Banquet Speech” for Nobel Banquet
2. Malala Yousafzai’s speech at the Youth Takeover of the United Nations
3. “Soul of a Man” speech in Remember the Titans
4. Pink's 2017 VMA acceptance speech
5. Saving Private Ryan “The Farther From Home I Feel”
6. Ashton Kutcher Teen Choice Awards
7. Winston Churchill “We Shall Fight on the Beaches”
8. “Seize the Day” from Dead Poets Society
9. Chief Joseph “Surrender Speech”
10. Alexander the Great Speech
11. Charlie Chaplin The Great Dictator
12. Any Given Sunday speech
13. MLK’s “The Other America” speech
14. Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”

When it comes to rhetorical analysis topics, you are only limited by your imagination. For more information on rhetoric, you might want to look at examples of rhetoric. You can also explore pathos, logos and ethos along with rhetorical question examples.