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How Did Ronald Reagan Use Ethos In Address To The Nation On The Challenger

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President Ronald Reagan in his speech Address to the Nation on the Challenger, addresses the grief that is being felt throughout the nation. He supports this claim by evoking pathos through the usage of diction, flashbacks, metaphors, sentence structures, shifts, tone, analogies, and finally allusion. Reagan’s purpose is to address the grief being felt by the tragedy of the explosion of the Challenger in order to move forward together as a nation. President Reagan evokes pathos in the introduction of his speech by using diction and a flashback. Reagan addresses the grief that is being felt nationwide by his use of diction, he states that the tragedy “is truly a national loss” (Par. 1). This appeal to pathos makes the audience feel truly connected and unified as a nation during this terrible time. Another way that Reagan evokes pathos is by using a flashback. For example, Reagan states, “Nineteen years ago, almost to the day, we lost three astronauts in a terrible accident on the ground. But…we’ve never had a tragedy like this” (Par. 2). At first the flashback is used to remind the audience that this type of accident has happened before, however, he also reminds them that it has never been this extreme. In a way, he is showing them hope, but also making sure that the audience knows …show more content…

Reagan honors the Challenger crew by saying, “they, the members of the Challenger crew, were pioneers” (Par. 4). By comparing them to pioneers Reagan makes them seem like people who took on a challenge that no one else dared to take on. Another way President Reagan evokes pathos in this section is by his sentence structures. Reagan states, “It’s hard to dazzle us…We’re still pioneers,” (Par. 4). His usage of these two short exclamatory sentences evokes a feeling of pride. By making them short sentences he gives more emphasis and also makes them stand out in the entire

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