ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the public reframed Norman Morrison’s comparative terms in a way that nullified his action as a sacrifice. It aims to extend Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s notion of a “useless sacrifice” by illustrating how some attempted to depoliticize Morrison’s self-immolation and, in the process, tried to erase the sacrificial nature of his protest. The chapter reviews some of the existing rhetorical scholarship on self-immolation and provides a reading of Morrison’s act as an argument by sacrifice. Morrison’s self-immolation functions as an argument by sacrificial comparison in which he attempted to connect death in Vietnam with death in America. The chapter focuses on the literature concerning self-immolation as a form of embodied argument by analyzing the dominant themes that arose about Norman Morrison following his 1965 protest. It concludes with a discussion of implications concerning sacrificial argument and a glance at how many individuals suffering in Vietnam weighed Morrison’s comparative terms differently than much of the American public.
