John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address Rhetorical Strategies Essay On the 20 of January 1961, newly elected President John F. Kennedy delivered his inaugural speech in front of the white house to his fellow Americans. While the speech’s respectful eloquence is appropriate for the occasion of an inauguration, its youthful energy and look to the future make it distinctly John F. Kennedy’s. Kennedy’s establishment of an optimistic tone enables him to satisfy his purpose by persuading the American people that he will undoubtedly become the triumphant leader that the nation is anticipating. He attains this goal of assuring the citizens of America that he is going to be successful in his aims to improve the country through the use of several rhetorical strategies predominantly, parallelism, anaphora, and syntax. John F. Kennedy implements parallelism in order to construct his ideas about what the country must begin to do in the future. Near the start of his address he proclaims, “We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, or oppose any foe,”(5) in order to continue to thrive as a nation. His use of parallelism in clauses proves his desire to prove that liberty and …show more content…
His address consists of a succession of twenty-eight concise paragraphs. The usage of paragraphs consisting of up to only three sentences each, keeps the audience attuned as well as makes the speech more memorable. His optimistic tone is reinforced by these strategies as keeping the sentences concise does not allow for the speech to lose momentum and the audiences’ exhilaration to deteriorate. Consistently, having the words said have high value decreases the chances that the audience would become disinterested and forget other viable parts of the speech. By using the tactics apparent in syntax considering length, Kennedy is able to make his speech appear more optimistic as well as