A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Last Lecture By Randy Pausch

In the book “Decoded,” rapper and businessman Jay-Z describes the emergence of hip hop culture while sharing his childhood memories, life challenges, and passions. Along with Jay-Z’s personal narrative, he provides an explanation for his song lyrics to educate readers about hip hop’s importance, his life, and national issues. Thus, he creates several arguments about hip hop’s purpose in the music industry. Two of Jay-Z’s main arguments consisted of hip hop being a form of art and the story of a hustler. This is especially true when considering how Jay-Z defines hip hop, analyzes supporting evidence, and interprets rap lyrics.

“Hypothetically, if you knew you were going to die and you had one last lecture, what would you say to your students?” That is how Professor Randy Pausch, from Carnegie Mellon, began his last lecture, a speech entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” while in fact he was dying of Pancreatic Cancer. He knew he only had months left to live and put together this last lecture to read to his students. His lecture focuses in on points such as the importance of: making sincere apologies, not whining, being gracious and being humble. To stress his thoughts and views on life and following one’s dreams, Randy Pausch used a great amount of repetition, metaphors, allusion, humor, ethos, and pathos in his last lecture.

The place where Pausch was giving his lecture was in a lecture hall at Carnegie Mellon. He was giving the speech to many people that he knew but also many others that he did not know. He was in front of a crowd of many people and in a perfect context for his last lecture. You also feel as if he is actually just speaking to you throughout the whole lecture.

This postcard builds suspense in the reader’s mind. Alex saying that this adventure could kill him makes the reader interested in finding out more. “If this adventure proves fatal and you don’t ever hear from me again I want you to know you’re a great man.” (Krakauer 3).

In paragraphs 29-31, Swift mentions several expedients, such as taxes, wearing homemade clothes, rejecting foreign luxury, curing vices among women, instilling the virtues of patriotism, taxing the absentees, and rejecting divisiveness while promoting honest, industry, and skill. Swift’s speaker stated at the end of all his expending, “How preceptors!” Swift’s rhetorical purpose is to make the reader realize that he is ironic as well as understand what he actually stands for. The reader learns that Swift is forced to resort to ironic tone to reveal his true intention, which would otherwise go unnoticed. Swift is ironic because there is no way his expedients could succeed in a time that Ireland was in, he was mainly trying to highly the economic problems affecting the county at the time.

The author and esteemed Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sherry Turkle, in the essay, “The Flight from Conversation,” published in the New York Times on April 22, 2012 addresses the topic of conversation versus connection. It argues that technology is interfering with the ability to communicate. Turkle supports her claim first by using ethos to establish her credibility, second by using logos to provide her logic, and finally pathos to relate and move the reader. Turkle establishes a sentimental tone in order to appeal to her audience’s emotions on the topic. The author’s overall purpose is to persuade her audience to be together and to interact in person so that they will

In the novel, The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow, Pausch recalls painting his bedroom walls after the permission of his parents. If my parents gave me permission to paint my bedroom walls, I would first paint on my favorite quotes on one wall. They could be quotes from my favorite books, movies, or important historical figures. For example, Mahatma Gandhi’s quote, “Be the change you wish to see in the world,” is a quote that I have to remember to follow when I am afraid to become a leader and change what needs to be changed in life. Basically, the quotes would be up on the wall just so I can look at them everyday for inspiration, or when I need them when I hit rock bottom. In addition, I would paint on all the ideas and hobbies

Margaret Heffernan once said, “For good ideas and true innovation, you need a mix of human interaction, conflict, argument, and debate.” In the article it is debated if there is any benefit in monetary rewards for students. Teachers, and parents alike are always trying to find the best way to reward and inspire there students to do well in school. Matthew G Springer is a professor of Public Policy and Education at Vanderbilt University. He is also the director of the National Center on Performance Incentives. He wrote this article to display his research and studies.

Randy Pausch strategically uses several styles of language and voice throughout his speech, such as diction, figurative language, humor, ethos, pathos, irony, repetition, and metaphors. His use of pathos, humor, and repetition were three prominent elements within “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. To capture his audience, Pausch provided entertainment with the use of audience interaction, comic relief, and visual aids such as a powerpoint presentation and personal items.

Many people wish they can drop everything important to them and isolate themselves from society; very few people will even attempt this, but Chris McCandless breaks societal norms to accomplish this goal. In Into the Wild, John Krakauer tells the story of this young man’s life to inspire the audience to chase their dreams through the use of logos, involved sentence, and anecdotes.

And this speech was a clear example of that. He offers a story about a young man who set off around the world attempting to find the meaning of life when one faithful day he stumbled upon a mansion where he was created and offered dinner by butlers and maids. The owner appeared to be a king who was gravely ill, shortly after a man wielding a weapon in one hand entered the room, the young man left the mansion and it disappeared, the young man could not understand, yet after continuing his travels he happened to find the mansion once again only this time he asked the ill owner of the mansion “tell me your story, what is the source of your pain” and in that very moment he had discovered the true meaning of life. To give yourself to others. His final words in this speech were something I am not ashamed to say almost brought me to tears. The passion and the way in which I was able to relate were astonishing. Michael Himes said and I quote “The thing that I wish for you is that sometime in your life you get a chance to say to people who mean an enormous amount to you what it is that has been truest in your own life because in a moment like that that you know that everything you gave away has been given back in

The rhetorical situation refers to “a situation in which people’s understanding can be changed through messages.” (Zarefsky, 12). The rhetorical situation analysis consists of four elements: audience, occasion, speaker and speech, each assessing the quality of speech. In this essay, I will analyze the rhetorical situation of the historical speech “The Challenger Address” delivered by the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan.

The Last Lecture began as a good-bye speech, made by Randy Pausch, a 47 year old professor diagnosed with terminal cancer. His speech at Carnegie Melon University became an Internet phenomenon. It has also been published as a book. I really thoroughly enjoyed his Last Lecture speech. He had a lot of good talking points and brought up some new perspectives, or ways of looking at life situations that got me thinking. He talked a lot about his dreams when he was a child and was very humorous and inspirational throughout his speech. He also had a lot of quotes that I really enjoyed and they are what I want to focus on.

This week, I watched Dr. Randy Pausch’s last speech: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams. I’ve talked a lot about his public speaking skills in my reflective paper, and I want to express my ideas about what he said in the speech.

The education system uses standard teachings in which this man knows that doesn’t work for every child. He is trying to show people that education is unfair and taking away creativity. Education is becoming bland and unfair for the children, like he said it is “trying to have a fish climb a tree”. He uses examples to show how far this century and society had advanced and then shows a picture of a classroom back then and also shows one in modern day to show they look the same to show nothing has changed. He uses tone of voice to show more powerful points in his speech along with people gasping to his facts that he shows the crowd. He uses many different kids to come into court as a “witness” to also help prove his point to the crowd.