Emma Gonzalez grounds her speech to the people at the March For Our Lives rally by comparing the setting of the rally to that of her high school on February 14, the day Nikolas Cruz opened fire to and killed 17 people, injuring 17 others. Gonzalez mentions the scorching heat, mass confusion, and feeling of “not knowing” to emphasize how such a severe situation isn’t so far away from real life. She then connects such thoughts to that of having to fight for change before it’s too late. Pathos is the main appeal for this speech, as Gonzalez hopes to convey the intensity at hand and severity of the issue that needs to be changed.

Her speech is actively, pretty short, as she then takes a prolonged moment of silence which is later revealed to be a 6 minute 20 second pause, the exact amount of time the shooting took place. The initial confusion of the crowd when Gonzalez stops speaking is eerily similar to the confusion she voiced just a minute earlier in her speech regarding the circumstances of the shooting. This is shown to be a very effective strategy for citing pathos, as the camera cuts to multiple shots of people in the crowd getting progressively more emotional as the silence continues.