What is rhetoric?

I think rhetoric is not one single thing. I think it consist of multiple aspects such as audience, purpose, language, and thoughts. Each aspect serves as a purpose which adds to the development of an idea. Because each piece is so essential to the idea that rhetoric is the ultimate expression of thought. It can be used an a means of communication. Communication can be expressed through music, art, poetry, dance, literature, and even architecture. All of which are different, yet similar in many ways. These forms of communication aren’t limited too our own thoughts and allow for change. These allow for the audiences perception as a well as the speakers perceptions to be self determined. For example, in a musical, the audience receives the message that is being giving by the performers. They interpret what is being said or done. However, on the other hand those that are performing are telling a story. They are telling it from their own point of view and their own perception, the way they want the audience to experience it. This is the basic concept of understanding one idea from another. This requires more than one person or object at all times. It must be intentional, in other words, what you mean versus what people take from it. This is the available means of persuasion, as said by Aristotle. What you say and how you say it may be different depending on who you’re speaking too, such as political rhetoric, like Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton and cultural rhetoric like VMI first class cadets speaking to the rats.