Rocky Balboa Speech Analysis

“Can you live in that moment, as best as you can, with clear eyes and love in your heart? With joy in your heart? If you can do that gentlemen then you’re perfect.” Doesn't take much dose it? This speech has so much meaning and and purpose behind it.

In order to deliver a successful speech, there are countless qualities that must be present to reach both the emotional and logical sense within a crowd. Through the use of rhetorical strategies and by remaining credible, a speaker or an author can connect with their audience; getting them involved with their writing. In May of 2011, a man by the name of Denzel Washington used multiple rhetorical strategies to deliver a graduation speech at the University of Pennsylvania. While revealing all of the difficult times that he had gone through while in college and discovering what career he wanted to pursue, he inspired millions of people, leaving a profound effect upon the world. Now, with millions of fans, Washington is a famous actor that has starred in numerous movies such as Courage Under Fire, Crimson Tide, and Malcolm X. Washington, along with the authors: Aristotle, Peter Elbow, and Donald Murray, and many others, have made a big difference in the world, simply by using rhetorical strategies.

“When you use logos, you are persuading with logic based on evidence and your skills of reason”(study.com). In Donald Trump’s inaugural speech, logic is rarely present.

Immediately as the speech begins, Henry’s tone manifests itself and remains unwavering. Henry begins, “It is natural for a man to indulge in the illustration of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth” (1). This sheds insight on his message and portrays him as a well versed individual. He then strengthens his tone when he says

He used logos when he talked about the Declaration of Independence and its writers. This is a fact, so it appeals to logic. Another place where he uses logic is where he talks about the fact that slaves are human. He points how people know this fact, but they just choose to ignore it. Another way that he appeals to logos is talking about how outrageous it is to have him making this speech, and that the people really do not understand the Fourth of July and crazy it is to think about it as a holiday for black people.

Not only is Ethos and Pathos used effectively in the speech, Logos is as well. Though the use of Logos is used much more indirectly than either of the latter, it is still an important component of the speech. Adm. Mcraven uses Logos by providing support for his statements and lessons taught throughout the speech. For example, Adm. Mcraven explained how one individual could ultimately change the lives of eight-hundred million people by only changing the lives of ten in their lifetime. He supports this claim with mathematical reasoning and evidence, “Ask.Com says that the average American will meet 10,000 people in their lifetime. That's a lot of folks. But, if every one of you changed the lives of just 10 people — and each one of those folks changed the lives of another 10 people — just 10 — then in five generations — 125 years — the class of 2014 will have changed the lives of 800 million people.”

The first chapter introduced the reader to the art of rhetoric. He describes how rhetoric works through real life examples. He demonstrates ways that rhetoric persuades us like, argument from strength, and seduction. He tells the reader that the sole purpose of arguing is to persuade the audience. He showed that the chief purpose of arguing is to also achieve consensus, a shared faith in a choice.

as the most effective form of persuasion. It is evident that logos best represents how an audience should be convinced, as seen in Amusing Ourselves to Death.

The purpose of this speech is to comfort the other boys and eliminate the fear.  He wants them to turn their focus away from fear towards the fire and rescue.

He uses the previous examples of individual's grief in his speech to make way to how this horrible situation could create a new, better beginning by using a single, simple rhetorical question: “why?”. After this, he states that “It is that out of the shadow of this evil, should emerge lasting good...“ and that out of this tragedy people should fight to make it to “people everywhere can see the chance of a better future through the hard work and creative power of the free citizen, not the violence and savagery of the fanatic.”, which ends the speech on a inspirational and humble

The tone in Jimmy Valvano’s speech is outgoing and lively. He easily grabs the attention of the audience by being so humble and grateful, and speaking softly to

Washington starts off his speech with pathos. Pathos is appealing to the emotional side of the audience and trying to get an emotional response from them. Washington begins his speech on why he is doing the speech in the first place. His son went to Penn U, so he was already officiated with the school. Him sharing his information about his past with the school makes the crowd feel more relax and less anxious. Knowing the person who is speaking, understands what you are going through helps a lot in building a connection with the Washington. With a smooth beginning, Washington begins to tell jokes about the staff and how everyone here hates the Yankees. Washington, first establishing baseline with the audience, was key to conveyance his message to the spectators. Washington evens tells the people, that he is nervous and uncomfortable for he has not done this kind of speech before. The feeling of knowing this man in front of you is speaking to thousands of people is afraid, even though he is such a famous actor makes you feel empathy for him. This connection is strong for even though he is famous, he can still get nervous like all the graduates. Washington brings up ideas he had for this speech, making jokes about his co-workers and stories of them. He did not decide to use one of those because he wanted to leave a message worth leaving for the graduates that will last a lifetime. Washington even connects with the parents, by saying “I always like to check how my money is getting used, am I right parents?”. (Penn's 2011

Logos is defined as an appeal to logic. I feel like he uses this the most out of all of the other ones because this speech is meant to appeal to logic because it is reasons on why we need to end the war. The first time he uses logos is when he starts talking about why we are in need of peace. In the speech he says “We entered this war because violations of our right had occured…” (1). I feel like this is a logical explanation as to why people go to war and why this war had begun. Therefore, it appeals to your logic.

Logos means reason. Martin Luther King Jr. uses logos to show why he is delivering this speech and why he wants things to change. He is delivering this speech to show how many blacks and other races, that weren’t being treated equally, really didn’t have freedom like they should. “It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the Negro.” (King, M. L. Jr. (1963, Aug.28) Para 6) “Instead of honoring the sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’” (King, M. L. Jr. (1963, Aug.28) Para 5) These quotes are just a couple of the logos quotes Martin Luther King said in his speech.

A method that resonates the best for my artifact is Neo-Aristotelian, an “original method of criticism” (Newbold & Scoot, 2017). This method can best help analyze not only speeches, but also advertisements, novels, public service announcements, etc. Deliberative genre, outlined by Aristotle, is demonstrated in this speech as an attempt to “persuade [young adults] to take some action” to become successful in their future (Nordquist, 2017). Thoroughly invested in the future of young adults, success is what Eric Thomas strives for his audiences to reach and works at gaining their initiative to do so.