Rhetorical Analysis Of William Mcraven's Speech

The fear of killing and being killed in battle is no easy thing to contemplate or to inspire. Inspiring soldiers to participate earnestly in battle is crucial to winning wars. Approaches to accomplish this have been studied and tried by military leaders for millennia. George S. Patton attempted this very thing in his speech to the Third Army. Patton delivered a profane and vulgar speech to untried soldiers who have yet to see combat. Patton is able to inspire his soldiers by using his reputation while dismantling his authority, using obscene humor, and appealing to their sense of honor and courage.

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.

Admiral William H. Mcraven addressed the 2014 graduating class at the University of Austin, Texas with more than eight thousand students in attendance. Adm. Mcraven’s address touched the hearts of millions all around the world with his inspirational message of how one person can change the world by following a simple set of rules. I chose this speech for my rhetorical analysis because of the important message it portrays, by how helping a few can eventually help many. Adm. Mcraven’s address was especially effective for his audience, much due to how he relates to the students by reminiscing of the day he graduated from UT while providing advice to his audience of college graduates preparing to begin their adult lives.

On April 4, 1968 Robert F. Kennedy began his political campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in Indiana. Before boarding his plane, Kennedy found out that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot in Memphis, Tennessee. At his arrival in Indianapolis, Kennedy was informed that Martin Luther King, Jr. had died from the incident. Kennedy was scheduled to speak to a large African-American audience, and was advised by the Indianapolis Police to not speak. The Chief of Police warned Kennedy that he would not be responsible for whatever may happen, making this speech even more dangerous. Kennedy chose to ignore the warning signs, went into the conference campaign, and spoke to the audience. Robert Kennedy, putting his political aspirations aside, advises the Indianapolis African-American audience not to retaliate to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination with violence, but with prayer, understanding, and love as Martin Luther King, Jr. taught. This is done through the use of motivational appeals, rhetorical devices, and expressing to the audience a purpose.

President George W. Bush starts his speech by acknowledging his intended audience: the Speaker of the Congress, the members of the Congress and the American people. He explains that the main aim of the speech is to address the 9/11 events and so he brings the attention to the widow of Todd Beamer, the American passenger aboard the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 who tried to reclaim the aircraft from the hijackers leading them to crash it into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. He then praises the American solidarity and strength in facing the tragic events and shows gratitude to the nations that have expressed their sympathy with the American people giving examples

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

In the year 2008 the world was a much different place. Before countless racial protests and riots in streets, before NFL players knelt during the National Anthem for what they believed in, and before our president spoke of nonsensical chauvinistic principles on a regular basis, our country appeared to have a greater sense of unification. This unifying bond between the American people was due in part by Barack Obama, whose entire campaign to become president may have been the most difficult struggle for anybody in the lineage of presidential candidates to go through. As part of his strategy to win over voters and soothe the skepticism of whites who may have had any doubting questions, Obama gave this speech on race; a speech which still

Before getting into his account of the lessons he learned while in basic SEAL training, McRaven recalls his own graduation day and humors the audience when he said “But of all the things I remember, I don’t have a clue who the commencement speaker was that evening and I certainly don’t remember anything they said.” (1). Without making a speech funny and relatable, the audience would grow bored and might not remember the commencement speaker or what was said in their speech, just like how McRaven did not. He also uses humor when explaining the “sugar cookie” effect. McRaven talks about how the trainees who failed the uniform inspection “had to run, fully clothed into the surfzone and then, wet from head to toe, roll around on the beach until every part of your body was covered with sand… [and] you stayed in that uniform the rest of the day—cold, wet and sandy.” (5). He then elaborates on the purpose of the drill and explains that sometimes in life, you’ll do everything you can to succeed at something and it still won’t be good enough. Therefore, “if you want to change the world get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward” (McRaven 5) and never stop getting up even if you’ve been knocked down more times than you can count. Admiral McRaven also uses pathos when trying to convince the audience that they all have a chance at changing the world. McRaven explains how

The Second Inaugural Address given by former President Abraham Lincoln shocked his audience. He wrote this speech a month before the Civil War ended. Abraham Lincoln uses rhetorical strategies such as appeals to ethics, sophisticated language, and medium to long sentences to express his vision for the future of the nation.

John F. Kennedy was elected during the Cold War which was fought between the United States and the Soviet Union. Citizens of the United States needed a leader while communism was spreading and dangerous weapons were being manufactured. Kennedy’s inaugural address was delivered on January 20th, 1961 in Washington, D.C. Kennedy envisioned bringing peace with other countries and uniting democratic countries to conquer communism. He dreams of bringing enemies together and creating a global alliance. Kennedy provides appeal to patriotism, appeal to religion, parallelism and antithesis to express unity and peace.

Problems are hard to solve sometimes, some problems may go on forever and we might keep thinking to ourselves that we solved it but really we're taking a five minute break. If only people knew how hard it was. Most every day people see life as an never ending stressful day until you have no more days and realized how much you had to begin with. But then you have the people that are clinged to the past and don't move on. That's really most of our problem the good ole days we say how good they were at the same time admiring those days so much that we miss out on what good we've been given today.

Congressman, Robert H. Clancy, in his speech, An “Un-American Bill”: A Congressman Denounces Immigration Quotas, discusses the discrimination of immigrants in America. He stands up for many immigrants and people of immigrant descent in his speech, trying to explain why the congressmen shouldn’t be against them. He uses a passionate, heartfelt tone to appeal to the congressmen’s thoughts. Clancy of An “Un-American Bill”: A Congressman Denounces Immigration Quotas addresses the situation of racial discrimination in America by using personal anecdotes, background research, and concrete facts to back up his argument.

As a new president, Kirkman needed to impress the nation and show strength after the tragic attack, while encouraging Americans to move forward in rebuilding the democracy. President Kirkman’s speech was successful in sending a touching message to encourage voting. Kirkman appealed to pathos by featuring a quote from Mindy Hessler’s daughter. Revealing his plans to attend a polling place to vote made him relatable; a successful strategy for a president. President Kirkman’s speech contributed a sense of patriotism while inspiring people to vote and improve the fragile democracy (ABC

John Kerry Believes During the 2004 Democratic National Convention, then Illinois Senator Barack Obama delivered a truly beautiful and heartfelt keynote address to the democratic voters for the support of democratic candidate John Kerry. His speech touched the very souls of the American people as he introduced his speech with an anecdote of his father following the American dream from his tiny shack in Kenya all the way to fields and oil rigs of Kansas where he would meet the women he would eventually marry. Obama talked about how his parents believed in the tolerance of both cultural and income differences in this country and then used parallelism, repetition, and logical appeals to link these such beliefs to John Kerry’s promises as president.

Donald Trump’s speech addressed to the United Nations General Assembly on September 19, 2017 was not effective. Despite the speech having a universal message that is hard to disagree with, you can tell exactly which parts of the speech were written by a speech writer, and which parts of the speech were written by Trump himself. This wouldn’t be an issue if Donald Trump’s inflections weren’t full of fallacies and unnecessary statistics. For example, in the third paragraph, President Trump tries to establish his Ethos by listing improvements in the United States since he took office. But many of these cherry-picked improvements have absolutely nothing to do with him being elected. They also have nothing to do with the general theme of the speech. This speech did have examples of effective rhetorical strategies. However, the bad far outweighs the good in this speech and takes away from the good message it originally had.