Lai 1

Income Injustice: Our Reality

Parts of the Oration

Narratio: The realization, the truth, and the reality slowly unravel in a few years from now that
some of us are going to be wealthy yet some of us going to be poor yet some of us are going to be in
the middle of the two.

Exordium: Good afternoon everyone.

Narratio: I present to you a proclamation that will be invaluable for your future, whether you are
successful in your career or not, whether you plan to work on architecture or medical sciences or
programming; any occupation you are competing for.

Divisio: Income inequality is dangerous to our society in many different ways beyond belief.

Confirmatio: First of all, let’s start by comparing the separation between the rich and the poor,
which will be 2 different yet potential pathways for all of our families. In our developed country
where we live in, we notice a difference between people who are able to afford mansions with a
colossal supply of novelties, not limited to the hordes of the most expensive clothing, the most
expensive jewellery, the most expensive computers, you name it, yet we also witness homeless
people begging for money in the streets. Begging for money so that a bystander would look in
sorrow, and in sorrow, he notices in regret, and in regret where even though he has money to spare,
he forgot to bring it with him. What message is being told to us, to our families of varying wealth, to
our authorities of where we live in, to ultimately our world of supposedly well-functioning order?
You can see the rich enjoying their fullest of lives, but the poor being stuck in poverty with flaring
alarms signaling a violation of human rights, a violation of freedom, a violation of humanity, with
the list of calamities going on from there. You can see the tragedies of different wealth classes grow
into our future when inequality still exists for our families and the rich.

Confutatio: One may argue, however, that the existence of different wealth classes is good for a
growing economy.

Refutatio: Yet, I ask everyone to see what the rich have done compared to the middle and poor
classes, including all of our families. Despite us being a part of the 99% of our population, we make
only half of the world’s income, yet we pay 95% of the world’s debt (Gray). As the rich are unable to
eliminate the boatload of debt the majority of our population caused, we instead suffer a
deteriorating recession affecting our future, god not knowing when worsening taxes, worsening
inflation, and worsening job growth will come to a stop.

Confirmatio: You see, compared to other wealth classes, the rich also tends to succumb more easily
to mismanaging wealth, as if they don’t care if their boatload of gold is being dumped into the
ocean. On the contrary, we notice that the poor are unlikely to waste money as they struggle to even
survive; you can see their hard-earned pennies being spent and you see their very basic supply of
groceries lasting them exponentially longer than a pretentious bowl of caviar. Poor people with all
their might to try to obtain a fair income are struggling while the rich do not get punished for
treating society like their playground.
 Lai 2

Confirmatio: In addition to this, the effects of us facing income inequality create an agonizing chain
reaction for our future. Consider the fact that income inequality leads to more students doing
poorly in school as opposed to doing well in a balanced wealth society. Over time, they descend
onto a slippery slope of misfortune as they are unable to successfully apply for jobs; as their income
is being suffocated (Why is income inequality bad?), and as a result, they are forced to commit
crimes to survive in prison as shelters, forced to deal with increasing debts, forced to eventually
scavenge leftovers from trash cans, forced to wither in hopelessness, forced to die.

Peroratio:

Eunermatio: My friends, these are the reasons why income inequality is detrimental to our growth
in society, from the slacking of the rich to the tragedies of the poor.

Affectus: If you want your future career to flourish with an enjoyable paradise ahead yet not
succumb to those adversities, if you want your families to cherish the brighter side of life, if you
want to avoid the devastation caused between the rich and the poor - we need to spread awareness
about the threat of income inequality. We should work towards influencing everyone; to our local
friends of varying wealth, to our fellow workers that you see many years from now, to our country’s
ruling authorities that decide our fate - that there shouldn’t be a single reason why homeless people
are in the streets, why rich people have an overprotective barrier, why effort to obtain salary is
underrated, and why changing wealth is unnecessarily difficult in a completely developed country
which we live in.

Schemes

Anaphora:
“We notice a difference between people who are able to afford mansions with a colossal supply of
novelties, not limited to the hordes of the most expensive clothing, the most expensive jewellery,
the most expensive computers, you name it.”

Polysyndeton:
“Some of us are going to be wealthy yet some of us going to be are poor yet some are going to be in
the middle of the two.”

Anadiplosis:
“Begging for money so that a bystander would look in sorrow, and in sorrow, he notices in regret,
and in regret where even though he has money to spare, he forgot to bring it with him.”
 Lai 3

Tropes

Rhetorical Question:
“What message is being told to us, to our families of varying wealth, to our authorities of where we
live in, to ultimately our world of supposedly well-functioning order?”

Hyperbole:
“You see their very basic supply of groceries lasting you exponentially longer than a pretentious
bowl of caviar.”

Emotive Language:
“Over time, they descend onto a slippery slope of misfortune as they are unable to successfully
apply for jobs; as their income is being suffocated, and as a result, they are forced to commit crimes
to survive in prison as shelters, forced to deal with increasing debts, forced to eventually scavenge
leftovers from trash cans, forced to wither in hopelessness, forced to die.”
Emotions of pity and sorrow are gradually instilled into the audience as the gravity of tragedy
involving a poor person slowly increases in consequence.

Dominant Appeal
Pathos: Throughout the oration, I plead to the audience to understand the importance of the
dangerous effects of income inequality by gradually using words like “homelessness, forced to
wither, forced to die,” which puts the audience in a state where they visualize the tragedies of the
unfortunate events the poor faces. As well, by setting up a contrast of emotions where the emphatic
advantages of the rich and the sorrowing impacts of the poor is about to be delivered, such as by
comparing the vast differences of the rich and poor in an exaggerative fashion with realistic
connections (i.e. the rich: hordes of the most expensive clothing, most expensive jewellery…; the
poor: begging for money where a bystander would look in sorrow, and in sorrow, he notices in
regret... ), it causes the audience to invoke emotional awareness about the issue of income
inequality towards our future and families.

Secondary Appeal
Ethos: All 3 sections of the confirmatio demonstrate that it is wrong to have the poor people suffer
from lack of freedom with a lack of income compared to the rich. Ethical issues, such as
homelessness/poverty of the poor (first and third section of confirmatio), wastefulness of the rich
(second section of confirmatio), and decreased school performance of the poor (third section of
confirmatio) are addressed throughout to show how the consequences of unbalanced wealth can
change one’s future yet also revealing the importance of inequality being reduced for a more
humane world.

Dominant Tone: sorrowful

Alterations in Tone: pitiful, exaggerated, condemnatory, importance, hopeful, commanding

MLA Citations
Gray, Alex. “3 Charts That Explain Global Inequality.” World Economic Forum,
www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/3-charts-that-explain-global-inequality/.
“Why Is Income Inequality Bad?” United for a Fair Economy,
www.faireconomy.org/why_is_income_inequality_bad.