A Rhetorical Analysis Of Commencement Speech By Georg George Saunders

In 2013, when Professor George Saunders delivered his commencement speech at Syracuse University he had one goal in mind, to inspire. Saunders didn’t want to get up in front of the audience and give a long boring speech, but instead he wanted to speak of useful information that graduates would remember for the rest of their lives. He wanted to use his time to teach the audience about the importance of spreading love and kindness. Saunders accurately argues in his speech that our society suffers from selfishness and the obsession of succeeding; he uses personal stories, questions/answer appeals and informal diction to help inform that if we allow ourselves to be cured of these illnesses we can open the door to all the love and kindness we have to offer.

He tells stories from his own life about being broke and going swimming a little buzzed. Saunders shares these life experiences to inform the audience that we all make mistakes and that no one’s perfect. He uses this strategy to get the audience engaged by thinking of an experience similar to his and to not regret it, but learn from it. Saunders also repeatedly brings up his biggest regret in life which was a girl named “Ellen.” He also uses pathos when he goes on to explain that “Ellen was small, shy” and was bullied by her classmates every day. Saunders feels as if he sat back “when another human being [Ellen] was there, in front of me, suffering and I responded…sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.” He still “forty-two years later” regrets never doing anything to help her, which connects to his ultimate regret is life, his “failures of