In Lloyd Bitzers, “The Rhetorical Situation”, he makes it
clear through out the essay that there are three things a literary piece must
have to fit his guidelines of a rhetorical situation. It is very important that
the reader understands all of this when dissecting a rhetorical paper. One of
those three things are an exigence, or some obstacle that needs to be done.
Bitzer mentions that there can be many exigencies but not all of them are
rhetorical. An example he provides in the reading was to suppose a man’s acts
were injurious to others but could only be changed if the discourse was addressed to him. The
second constituent of a rhetorical situation is the audience, which consists of
“persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse or of being mediators
of change.” Bitzer mentions in his piece that an example of an audience in a
rhetorical sense would be that not all must have to act to be a part of the
audience, just choose not to act or be unable to act upon hearing a speech. The
third constituent is the constraints on the rhetorical situation. They are
described as “persons, events, objects, and relations which are parts of the
situation … [and] have the power to constrain both decision and action needed
to modify the exigence” He mentions that there two classes, those started by
the rhetor and those which may be operative. All of these three things are crucial
and necessary in creating a true rhetorical situation.
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