Rhetorical Question
A question asked for effect, not to get an answer but to make a point.
A rhetorical question implies its own answer or invites the reader to reflect rather than reply. Writers use it to drive home a claim, stir emotion, or draw the audience into agreement. Its force lies in the pause it creates and the answer it makes feel obvious.
Example
Shylock’s “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” needs no answer; the question itself insists on his shared humanity.
The Merchant of Venice · William Shakespeare
See it in action
Analyses on StoryBites that use rhetorical question:
Related terms
Pathos, Ethos, and LogosThe three classical appeals of persuasion: to emotion, to character or credibility, and to logic.AnaphoraThe repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or lines.ApostropheA direct address to an absent person, an abstract idea, or a thing that cannot answer.