Braveheart Essay, Research Paper

This movie is about war between the English and the scotch rebellion people. A scotch brave knight (William Wallace) comes to lead his people of Scotland to victory in a few battles with the English, which makes a threat to the king of England. The English king sends his French daughter in law to negotiate peace with the savage warier.

The scene begins as the warier approaches the beautiful princess with worn out clothes. The princess, have a look of anxiety in her eyes as she recognizes Wallace as a savage person. The princess invites Wallace to her tent to discuss the king’s proposals of peace. In the tent she describes Wallace’s actions of killing her husband’s cousin of being savage. Consequently he defends his actions by revealing the crimes that the noble man committed to the poor women and innocent children of Scotland. The princess seems surprised, as she knew nothing about it. Wallace adds to her information that the king has done things worst than just hanging women and children on the walls of the city, when it comes to killing innocent people. The princess’s bodyguard interfers by telling her that Wallace is a lier in some other language so Wallace will not understand, which lead Wallace to reply at the bodyguard in the same language that he spoke. Also demonstrating to the princess that he is capable of speaking other languages as well. The princess looks more surprised and dismisses her bodyguard.

The two talk about the peace and the king’s bribe to Wallace, which would make him one of the wealthy nobles. Wallace refuses the offer and tells the princess about the king’s false word of peace by exposing the past of the king when he hung the villagers after giving them his word of peace. Wallace also shares with the princess his secret of his marriage to his beloved, and how the English murdered her. The princess shows affection. In conclusion, the princess has nothing more to say, because she now knows the truth about the situation. Consequently she returns persuaded of what Wallace told her about the king’s wrongful doings.

The Yale theory deals with the learning approach of the message, hence, the more person learns about the message, the more he becomes persuaded by it. From the text, Carl Covland at Yale University conducted the first systematic, comprehensive research projects that dealt with attitude change. (Page 63 persuasive COM.). The research started with a question “how are people persuaded?” the research program investigated and came up with the Factors, underlying Process, and Persuasion outcome based on message learning approach. There are Independent Variables such as, the message, source, recipient, and the channel. Each of these variables has it’s own characteristics that affects the Internal Mediating Process, which are the attention where the receivers attention is drown. The comprehension understanding the message. Yielding accepting and being persuaded by the message, and retention something the receiver takes with him so he can remember the message. Followed by the Consequent Communication Effect that changes the attitude, belief and the behavior of the receiver. The research concluded that the receivers must retain the information in order to be persuaded. And when persuasion occurs, they will fell rewarded by getting persuaded by that message.

In this scene we can use Yale’s model of attitude change. The source is William Wallace and the receiver is the princess. The channel is a strong media, which was a direct face to face conversation. The first message, which was delivered by the princess, is that the actions of Wallace by killing the noble man are barbaric.

The other message by Wallace (sender) to the princess (receiver) is that the innocent people of Scotland are being massacred and slaved in horrible ways, which makes it emotional. In addition, the scotch people are only fighting for their freedom, which is a rational behavior. Hence, Wallace’s message is repeated many times throughout the scene, which gave his situation a positive aspect and made the princess stops in being bias towards the English. Consequently, Wallace got the princess’s attention. Wallace has helpful persuasive characteristics. He has a worm voice with handsome face and innocent eyes that made the princess trust him. In addition, Wallace has rational reasons of defending his people. Wallace was an expert of war issue as well as a leader to his army. Consequently, the princess knew that if he says that he want’s to invade England, then he is series. So she was careful to listen to his words. Again we can observe the yielding of the princess to Wallace’s expertise. Wallace was well educated, as the princess realized after she knew that speaks different languages, which got her attention more, in the degree that she dismissed her bodyguard to be alone with Wallace, which also shows that she trusted him. The princess comprehended Wallace’s point of view and his situation. Wallace’s strong character and the rationality of his message persuade the princess. In being a female receiver, which would make her perceive the message more emotionally than men do, the princess seemed to agree with Wallace especially after he shared with her what happened to his wife. Again she is affected emotionally by the message. Obviously, the princess was intelligent and well educated woman. As a result, it made her understand the message faster than a normal person would. Finally the princess changes her attitude and believes about the scotch warier to the positive side, as well as the change of believes, attitude and behavior towards the king and her husband. Furthermore, the princess falls in love with Wallace and becomes a trusted source for him, as we in the rest scenes of the movie.