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Traditional conceptions of rhetorical ethos treat character exclusively as an instrument of persuasion, but the persona of the rhetor often functions as a means of constituting the self in relation to a complex network of social and cultural relationships. This generative function of character becomes especially important in cases where suppressed groups attempt to find rhetorical means to alter their circumstances. Using Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" as a case study, we argue that the text develops a complex ana nuanced construction of King's character. This construct allows King to criticize his target audience without alienating himself from it and also allows the "eavesdropping" black audience to discover a model for reconstructing their own sense of agency. This constitutive dimension of character occurs simultaneously and in intimate connection with its use as an instrument of persuasion concerning specific issues. Based on this case, we argue that rigid distinctions between instrumental and constitutive functions of rhetoric are misleading and that rhetorical critics should regard the constitution of self and the instrumental uses of character as a fluid relationship.
Almost 30 years ago, in an essay devoted to the Autobiography of Malcolm X, Thomas W. Benson commented that rhetoric is, among other things, a way of constituting the self within a scene composed of "exigencies, constraints, others and the self," and it is also a resource for "exercising control over self, others, and by extension the scene."1 Thus Benson assigns rhetoric a dual function. It is simultaneously generative and instrumental, because it helps to constitute the identity of self, other, and scene, while it also pulls these identities within the orbit of situated interests. Moreover, once this duality is acknowledged, it virtually forces the critic to expand and complicate the conventional interest in "ethical proof," because the persona of the rhetor emerges not just as an instrument of persuasion but also as something constituted within the rhetorical medium.
Viewed from our current vantage point, Benson's observations seem prescient. He anticipates a set of pivotal issues associated with recent interest in constitutive rhetoric and with the emergence of "interpretive" or "conceptual" criticism.2 He also locates a subject-Malcolm X in particular and African American protest rhetoric in general-where these problems arise with special clarity and...