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Rhetorical Devices In Jfk Inaugural Address

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The 35th American President, John F. Kennedy, in his inaugural address, which he delivered after he just won the president seat, reclaimed his purpose as a successful and competent leader. JFK’s purpose was to not only demonstrate his amity towards the world, but also encourage his people to devote themselves to America. He used repetition and parallelism as his rhetorical strategies in order to convey to his audience, which includes both Americans and international people, the idea that America needs them to create a peaceful world in a nuclear age. After emphasizing the importance of freedom to America, JFK demonstrated his friendly attitude by using repetition to list his position toward some large or important organizations in the …show more content…

At the first place, JFK employed the large structure “not as a call...though...” to convoy his ideas that the thing he needed at that moment was peace instead of war, which continue to show his peaceful attitude. Moreover, this rhetorical device built a base for transformation from what we did not need to what we need--- “a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle”--- to trigger both emotional accumulation and audiences’ desire to listen. This rhetorical device had similar function as repetition which I just mentioned before, and it even made a more impressive image inside JFK’s audiences’ mind. Just like the second climax is always more powerful than the first one, this parallelism was more clear and obvious than the former strategy so that his people will able to follow his ideas. After having a probable goal which built in the repetition, JFK’s audience now had a path toward it. At the second place, JFK utilized two similar sentences “my fellow...ask not what...do for you...but what...can do for” to encourage Americans to contemplate what they could do for America. Besides let JFK’s words become pleasant to hear, the fluent conversion between two sentences also sublimed its level from person to society, and shifted its topic from America to the freedom

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