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
Thatcher begins her testimony of Reagan's character with repetition of the word "great." She uses this to describe all the ways in which he truly excelled and to list the aspects of Reagan's life that she was going to be praising throughout her eulogy. In her first body paragraph, Thatcher uses words like "cheerful" and "invigorating" to capture the essence that he gave off to others. Her use of unified diction allows the reader to not only connect to Reagan as a person but also feel Thatcher's pain throughout the speech after she losing someone she thought so highly of and considered a friend. She enhances Reagan's character when she says "He sought to mend America's wounded spirit" (Line 5-6). Her personification of America by describing its spirit as "wounded" allows the reader to connect to America's less than admirable state with terms that are relatable. Thatcher continues to develop Reagan's character with her use of metonymy. In line 15, she refers to the heart of communism as "the very heart of the evil
The purpose of Reagan's address was to inspire the people to revitalize the American government and rebuild the economy. Reagan emphasizes the importance of returning power to the people, and he motivates the people to take part in improving the economy by calling the everyday working man an "American hero." Reagan creates the argument that a better future is in the hands of the people, not in the hands of the federal government. He specifies that the people are the everyday heroes that keep the economy alive. Reagan builds unity and a sense of togetherness in the American people through the use of rhetorical strategies like Kairos, anaphora, and rhetorical questions. He also drives his argument home by directly addressing the people, and by
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny” is perhaps the most famous line from the speech. People are inspired by the speech because Reagan gives the American people hope for their future and their children’s future. His use of repetition conveys to us that we “have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny”. Repetition is a powerful rhetorical technique that Reagan exercises to emphasize unity among the American people. Reagan kept his audience eager for more. He would expose an issue or problem and then create a solution. Exposing faults within the existing government Reagan is able to crack part of the “once believed” solid foundation of the U.S. government. He also exposes how the seediness and greediness of the government is leaking into the minds of other fellow Americans. He states situations where individuals are taking desperate measures such as divorce, in order to earn a higher salary so they can provide for their families. Reagan tells us that there are ways around this and that these issues are not individual but collective.
Thatcher used a pathos appeal to get the audience to feel bad for the passing of Reagan. With this, she gets the audience to feel sorry for her dear friend, and makes them feel the sorrow that she endures. One example of this is shown on lines one through two, “We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man, and I have lost a dear friend.” These lines get the reader to
Ronald Reagan, the former 40th president of the United States died on June 5th of 2004. A couple of days later on the 11th, Margaret Thatcher the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, wrote an eulogy for Ronald Reagan. In this eulogy, Thatcher uses rhetorical strategies to convince her readers into believing what she states. She uses the strategies of parallelism, pathos and diction to get her message out and to help her reader receive it. And thus Thatcher can convince her readers into believing what she says.
In paragraph nine, she reflects on how she and Reagan worked together for “eight… most important years” (55). Thatcher also acknowledges to the audience that they all lost a great friend, that they were together and not alone. Because of this, the appeal to pathos is clear when she refers to Reagan’s attitude as “the great cause of cheering us all up” (12). Thatcher closes her speech by stating that Reagan loved America for the “freedom and opportunity for ordinary people” (97). All together, the appeals to ethos and pathos brought Thatcher’s speech and her audience together. She revealed who Ronald Reagan was to her and who the American people were to
Thatcher uses contrast to set Reagan aside from everyone else in the way he ran his country. Once again, using the example of “Others… He…” Thatcher tells of the fear, doubt, and uncertainty many Americans faced, while describing Reagan as the great inspirational leader who boosted morale, spread reassurance, and brought back hope into the suffering peoples’ lives. Contrasting this heroic president to devastated citizens helps to portray him as a ray of light during dark times.
Reagan adds his feelings of faith and respect in our space program and the people at NASA who make it possible. He goes on to assure that space exploration will continue. While addressing the school children who were watching, Reagan states that "the future belongs to the brave." He also states unfortunately painful things like this sometimes happen and sadly it is all part of the process of exploration and discovery(Reagan)”. He ends his speech with a beautifully articulated conclusion. ”The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, or the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God(Reagan).” “The last line was taken from a sonnet written by WWII pilot John Gillespie Magee titled "High Flight", but was a very memorable way to end the speech.
. . ] Mr. Gorbachev—Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" In this part, Ronald Reagan used pathos to create excitement and happiness among his audience which made them cheer, and in a sense, he wants an engaged audience to be reassured that they are on his side. Another appeal to emotions in the speech is when he states "I pledge to you my country's efforts to help overcome these burdens." In this section, pathos was used to make people feel that he (Ronald Reagan) is trustworthy and can rely on his judgments. Also, at the end of is the speech he asserts "I invite those who protested then—I invite those who protest today—to mark this fact: Because we remained strong, the Soviets came back to the table." Which creates emotions, lifting up the spirit of the audience as he tells them to remain
These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war." These are the words President Reagan chose to describe the men who scaled the cliffs 40 years earlier. Through skillful repetition known as tetracolon and anaphora, Reagan emphasized certain words and phrases in his speech. As each phrase in this tetracolon is read, the words used to describe the men get progressively more impressive. They are the boys, the men, the champions, the heroes. Reagan's use of progressing adjectives makes the sentence even more impactful as each individual phrase grows more powerful until the final phrase: the heroes. Reagan's use of anaphora has a similar effect on the reader as they read, causing them to take a certain tone for each word "these are the boys...these are the men...these are the champions...these are the heroes." Each of these devices causes the reader to feel the energy behind each word until the final word, "heroes." Reagan’s effective writing of his speech allows readers to experience his energy, passion, and profound respect he puts behind every word of his speech. Later in his speech, he says, “The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.” Once again, Reagan’s use of repetition enhances his message, this time
The last element of the rhetorical situation is speech. Reagan’s primary objective of this speech was to show his condolence to those of who suffered from the accident and involve audience to join for grief. Throughout his speech his ideas were carried in a coherent way, without deviating from his objective. Reagan achieved this through using various words and phrases that magnify his emotion. Using phrases such as “slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of god” illustrated his feeling towards the situation without much of explanation. In addition, because he understood that the audience of this particular speech consisted of diversity of
Reagan begins with, “Now, I have used the words ‘they’ and ‘their’ in speaking of these heroes. I could say ‘you’ and ‘your,’ because I'm addressing the heroes of whom I speak—you, the citizens of this blessed land. Your dreams, your hopes, your goals are going to be the dreams, the hopes, and the goals of this administration, so help me God” (Woolley). Reagan pauses immediately after the phrase “so help me God” to tell the American people that this is a reality and there is a need for focus on the meaning behind the words (Woolley). Although the phrase that Reagan used was touching, his purposeful pause at the end of the speech helped shape his message and main claim into another level of importance to the
One rhetorical device that Thatcher uses throughout her essay is repetition. One example is used in the first sentence of her eulogy, in which she states, “We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man, and I have lost a dear friend.” Multiple times in this first sentence, Thatcher uses the term “great,” followed by a separate adjective to describe Reagan. These positive descriptions are used by Thatcher to comfort the American people, reminding them that they are not just grieving over a successful former president, but also a fellow American, giving them every right and reassurance to their mourning.
After his heartbreaking death, Ronald Reagan leaves behind a legacy that goes unnoticed by Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher commemorates the life of Ronald Reagan as she speaks to the close people of the former president in order to highlight his honor and leadership and reaches out to her audience to bring respect and mourning at the loss of Reagan. Thatcher utilizes powerful diction to portray Reagan, such as “cheerful and invigorating presence”, and “freshness and optimism”. These descriptions of his leadership in office and character contribute to the legacy Thatcher latches to Reagan’s memory. She uses juxtaposition of powerful diction by describing how Reagan’s jokes after an assassination attempt, “were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria one
On the fourth paragraph Reagan describes how the astronauts and how they were pioneers. They took the challenge and did what they had to do without any hesitation. Reagan also wants