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Rhetorical Analysis Of A Purpose Driven Life

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Each of us is dealt a hand when we come into this world, it is how we use what we’ve been given that matters. Rick Warren, author of “A Purpose Driven Life” gave a speech in February of 2006 about living a life of purpose. The speech was directed at people with an amount of influence in the world, big or small. The Purpose of this speech was to urge people to go out and use their talents, and influence to make the world a better place. Rick Warren has an excellent use of ethos, pathos, and logos in his speech. He uses his knowledge of people, and real life experiences to capture the audience’s attention.
Rick Starts his speech off by talking about a book. He doesn’t come out and say what the book is, or what it is about. This captures the audience’s attention from the beginning because they want to know more about the book. They also want to know more about the author and why he is speaking to them. He then goes into why he believes so many people are reading this book and as to why it is selling so many copies. In doing all of this, he gives reasons why he is qualified to be speaking on this particular topic, which is that he wrote a best selling book about living a life of purpose. This is an example of ethos because he is telling people to give their life’s away to better the world instead of bettering themselves.
The biggest appeal Rick Warren uses is logos. One of the important things he said that goes against what people believe was about money and happiness. Rick said “If money actually made you happy, then the wealthiest people in the world would be the happiest. And that I know, personally, I know, is not true” (5). People in the world think that the more money you have, the happier you will be, and Rick says it is not true. He also talks about all of the money that came pouring in after he wrote the best selling book. In his speech he says that the good life is about giving your life away. With all of the money that he got, he started giving it away, he did not want to use it on himself. In stating all of what he did with the money, he proves he is not a hypocrite. It might sound like he is bragging, but this is a good point to make for the audience to listen to him. He wasn’t saying one thing and

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