Rhetorical Analysis Of John F. Kennedy's Speech

There are many things that a speech must contain to make it a well written and spoken speech. John F. Kennedy 's speech he gave on September 12th 1962, titled “Address at Rice University on the Nation 's Space Efforts”, better known as “We Choose to go to the Moon” contains many of the important factors of a successful speech. Kennedy used rhetorical strategies and skills to help him influence the American people to help accomplish the major goal of reaching the moon. Kennedy did not only want to reach the moon, but he wanted to be the first country to do so. President Kennedy effectively told the objective he found important by using ethos, pathos and kairos throughout his speech to help get the support of the people. By using these three rhetorical strategies Kennedy gave a moving speech.

On a cold January day America’s newly appointed president John F. Kennedy delivered his inauguration address that was incredibly important to America’s success during the Cold War. Kennedy uses his speech as a call to arms, but not only to America but the World and our allies as a whole. He uses his strong powerful voice to appeal to the ethics of the country in the beginning of his speech telling America about the promise we made when we were founded and that we must uphold it still today, telling America we must make a difference. Kennedy also uses ethics to explain that we the people are united no matter what your background or where you are from, he refers to the Americas as one place, because he wants for us to feel unified not divided. Furthermore Kennedy’s use of powerful imagery, logic and pathos allows for him to effectively call the people of the World together during this terrible time.

In John F Kennedy’s “Inaugural address”, he tries to bring the nation together by speaking confidently and powerful. Kennedy’s vigorous use of rhetorical devices including Antithesis, Reasoning, Emotional Appeal, Allusion, and Anaphora that contribute to the success of his speech. JFK uses these rhetorical devices to convey his ambitions and hopes for america as a nation in a whole. Also hoping for a pledge of peace; that we do not show weakness. In his hopes of coming together our acts individually would make us look and be stronger. Kennedy used his speech as a way to draw all of the audience in by pulling us together.

In the beginning of his speech, Kennedy utilizes diction in order to evoke a surge of emotions in his audience. Kennedy outlines the gravity of the subject, “steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds...public responsibility...utter contempt for the interests of 185 missions.”

The first device that President John F. Kennedy uses to combat the issue of raising steel prices is parallelism. In the second paragraph of his speech, he begins listing outcomes of the dramatic increase in steel prices by saying, "...when we are confronted with grave crises in Berlin and Southeast Asia, when we are devoting out energies to economic recovery and stability, when we are asking Reservists to leave their homes and families for months on end, and servicemen to risk their lives..."(lines 6-12) This is an effective use of parallelism because he builds on the previous statement by starting out the one that follows with the same introduction: "...when we are..." He is trying to prove that America is in a crisis situation and the steel companies increasing their prices is only going to make the situation even worse. He is showing all of the sacrifices that people are making and proving to the steel companies that their high wages are going to have a very negative effect on a people who are sacrificing more than anyone would have ever expected for their country. The second example of parallelism is in the third paragraph of his speech, when he begins by saying, "...it would increase the cost of homes, autos, and appliances, and most other items for every American family. It would increase the cost of machinery and tools to every American businessman and farmer. It would seriously handicap out efforts to prevent an inflationary spiral from eating up the pensions of out older citizens, and our new gains in purchasing power."(lines 23-31) He is pleading to the steel companies to lower their prices through showing them examples

To begin his speech Kennedy describes the steel company’s actions as greedy and unnecessary. He states that the steel companies disdainful action will only hurt the public. “Simultaneous and identical actions of United States Steel and other leading steel corporations, increasing steel prices by some 6 dollars a ton, constitute

While the speech’s respectful eloquence is appropriate for the occasion of an inauguration, its youthful energy and look to the future make it distinctly John F. Kennedy’s. , The people of the United States desperately needed a boost in morale with ongoing tension of races, inequalities, the fight against communism and the cold war. The people were convinced that this war would be never ending, and believed in another inevitable war. From the beginning to the end of JFK’s speech, he uses a plethora of rhetorical devices to comfort the people and fill them with confidence.

As Commander-In-Chief of a nation emerging from a recession, President John F. Kennedy addresses the hike in steel prices to the American public and steel companies to stigmatize the nation’s leading steel companies for their unnecessary decision to increase steel prices. Within his speech, Kennedy’s use of rhetorical strategies to enhance his purpose is dominated by his dichotomous diction to separate himself from the affluent and align with the suffering American people, parallelism and anaphora to emphasize the equal magnitude of previous American crises to the rise of steel prices, and cause and effect organizational mode to highlight the numerous detrimental effects on the American public caused by the steel companies’ hike in steel prices.

On April 11, 1962, President John F. Kennedy held a news conference to discuss the 3.5% increase on steel prices across the country. With the country at war, and struggling to emerge from a recession, increasing the price of steel would have a negative impact. After his administration had taken steps to aid the steel companies to reach a non-inflationary steel workers union contract, the decision to increase steel prices was deemed to be a betrayal of the President and the American people. The speech was directed towards the “common man” in opposition to big steel companies. He speaks for the purpose of not only persuading the companies to lower their prices, but also to convince the public that he is looking out for their best interest. Kennedy employs a disapproving tone and strong diction in an effort to clearly achieve his goal in influencing the steel

The role of a leader is to always put the interests and needs of the people first. However, a barrier may stand in the way of this connection. While addressing the media on April 11th, 1962, President John F. Kennedy discusses the steel executives’ decision to raise the price of their product, which affected the American public. Throughout this speech, Kennedy strategically berates the executives, removing the blame off himself, as well as rallies together the American public through his appeals to the consciences of the smaller group of executives and the shared virtues of the larger group of Americans.

In John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech, he worked on persuading audience or listeners for the idea which is American should do anything that should be done to assure the survival and the success of liberty. In his mind, American should hold their liberty forever, further guarantee other country freedom. Kennedy really used a lot of rhetorical strategies in his speech. Of course, he used those strategies successfully. One of the rhetorical devices he used was antithesis. Another rhetorical device that I found out was metaphor which is a good way to create a good image, further, make audience believed in his mind.

As the United States was emerged from a recession, many of the large steel companies decided to monopolize steel prices by raising it 3.5 percent, which would lead to President Kennedy responding to the businesses actions. On April 11, 1962, Kennedy in a news conference would go onto shaming the steel prices brought by these corporations, especially after asking in a program of national sacrifice to help stable prices and wages. His usage of rhetorical strategies such as unifying diction, the literary device of pathos, and a disapproving tone in order to achieve his purpose of not only reversing the increase of steel prices to normal but also disgrace their actions.

President Kennedy utilizes rhetorical appeals and a variety of figurative language to formally express his beliefs and goals in a strong and eloquent manner.

The distinctive voices, inherent in any text, are intended to have an impact on the audience. Significant voices are influenced by the values and beliefs of the composer, as well as cultural, political and historical content. Composers use a range of language tools and features to successfully covey messages to their audience. John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, Severn Cullis-Suzuki’s Address to the Plenary Session, Earth Summit and Charlie Chaplin’s Let us all unite, all provide excellent examples of a distinctive voice. Each of these distinctive voices is formed through the use of emotive language, tone, repetition and rhetorical devices.

John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, has become one of the most famous presidents in the nation's history due to his oratory skills and eloquence (Biane,2011). In this paper, we present an analysis the inaugural speech that he delivered in January 1961. Even though his Inaugural speech lasted less than fifteen minutes, the message that he saliently delivered was one that has continued to resonate in the very hearts of American citizens.