Rhetorical Devices In Jfk Inaugural Address

Jake McKervey
ENGL1010
Zach Largey
3/2/15
Paper #3
Rhetorical Analysis of JFK’s Inaugural Address

On January 20th, 1961, the President of the United States of America, John F. Kennedy gave his Inaugural Address. A speech that he started writing in mid-November of the previous year. Slowly but surely putting a speech together that will long be remembered. Kennedy knew that his speech needed empowering because this moment can be a defining moment in a president’s term of office. JFK, like Lincoln and FDR, wanted to keep his speech short and concise, but still speaking to everyone in the nation. He then addresses the nation as a whole, the world, sister countries, and then the nation itself again. JFK uses a simplistic type of word choice,

Kennedy in his speech first classifies his audience, which is not only America but the world into five separate categories, “old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share,” “new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free,” “people in the huts and villages across the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery,” “that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations,” and “nations who would make themselves our adversary” - and then later addresses how he plans to keep up relations and deal with the problems that have arrived or shall arrive. Kennedy then uses a beautiful analogy by describing Soviet Russia and how Russia pushes the communism to less developed and third world countries like Cuba by stating “those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside”
President John F. Kennedy uses the facts of the cold war to create propositions to possibly mend the relations between the USA and Russia: “Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. Let both sides, for the first time, formulate serious and precise proposals for the inspection and control of arms – and bring the absolute power to destroy other nations under the absolute control of all