Rhetorical Questions

The rhetorical question is a special syntactical stylistic device the essence of which consists in reshaping the grammatical meaning of the interrogative sentence. In other words, the question is no longer a question but a statement expressed in the form of an interrogative sentence. Thus there is an interplay of two structural meanings: 1) that of the question and 2) that of the statement. Both are materialized simultaneously. For example:

"Are these the remedies for a starving and desperate populace?"

"Is there not blood enough upon your penal code, that more must be poured forth to ascend to Heaven and testify against you?" (Byron)

"...Shall the sons of Chimary

Who never forgive the fault of a friend

Bid an enemy live?..." (Byron)

"Did not the Italian Mosico Cazzani

Sing at my heart six months at least in vain?" (Byron)

"Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?

Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?" (Byron)

"Is the poor privilege to turn the key

Upon the captive, freedom?" (Byron)

It has been stated elsewhere that questions are more emotional than statements. When a question is repeated as in these lines from Poe's "The Raven:"

" — Is there — is there balm in Gilead?! Tell me — tell me—I implore!—"

Litotes is a stylistic device consisting of a peculiar use of negative constructions. The negation plus noun or adjective serves to establish a positive feature in a person or thing. This positive feature, however, is somewhat diminished in quality as compared with a synonymous expression making a straightforward assertion of the positive feature. Let us compare the following two pairs of sentences:

1. It's not a bad thing — It's a good thing.

2. He is no coward — He is a brave man.

Let us examine the following sentences in which litotes is used:

1. "Whatever defects the tale possessed — and they were not a few — it had, as delivered by her, the one merit of seeming like truth."

2. "He was not without taste..."

3. "It troubled him not a little..."

4. "He found that this was no easy task."

5. "He was no gentle lamb, and the part of second fiddle would never do for the high-pitched dominance of his nature." (Jack London)

6. "Mr. Bardell was a man of honour — Mr. Bardell was a man of his word — Mr. Bardell was no deceiver..." (Dickens)

7. "She was wearing a fur coat... Carr, the enthusiastic appreciator of smart women and as good a judge of dress as any man to be met in a Pall Mall club, saw that she was no country cousin. She had style, or 'devil', as he preferred to call it." (Warwick Deeping)