Rhetorical Analysis Of John F. Kennedy Speech

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For many Americans, John Fitzgerald. Kennedy, the former president, is one of the best presidents in their mind. The inauguration of him in 1961 Washington D.C is a famous and landmark speech. Even though today, over fifty years later, many American people can remember some sentences from it. Having won the election by one of the smallest popular vote margins in history, Kennedy knows the great importance of this speech. (Analyzing) Due to John’s incredible application of diction and rhetorical devices, this address becomes a classic, meanwhile helps him successfully gain more supports. Through broadcast on radio and television, the speech is converted to everywhere in the nation, even in this planet. Kennedy’s time in office is during the …show more content…

By virtue of structurally using anaphora and parallelism, which refer to repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of the line (JFK), he separates contents to diverse sections, so that the each paragraph is more targeted, allowing the address to maintain a coherence. Beginning with “to”, he discusses what five “more pledges” are in each segment, like the first one “to those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends.” Then, he lists new independent states, people or countries with misery, neighbor republics and the United Nations. These pledges are for friends to show the sincerity that America is willing to unite other friends and assist for people in need. Just as he says: “United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do.” The following portion is about quests instead of pledges, he talks over the nuclear war and his hope for peace beginning with “let both sides”, just as “let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.” He uses these four sentences beginning with “let both sides” to portray his desired future. The nuclear power is so deadly that it is able to “engulf all humanity”. Thus, both sides are struggling with sustaining the “uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war”. Kennedy’s appropriate usage of anaphora and parallelism conveys the audience a sense of

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