Analysis of Pres. Obama's Speeches
But…Christmas Was Just 11 Days Away…
Eleven days before Christmas a child is usually happy, energetic, excited, and anxious to see what kinds of pleasant gifts are underneath the tree from “Santa.” No one in Newtown, Connecticut had a clue that 20 of Sandy Hook Elementary School’s students and six adults wouldn’t be seeing that precious day. Unfortunately on this peaceful Friday, December 14th , 2012, Adam Lanza took their lives. His motive is unknown. As police arrived to the scene, Lanza committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. This was the second-deadliest shooting in US history, after the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007. This shooting really hurt the nation and they wanted answers.
President Barack Obama then delivered three speeches following this tragedy. The first speech was only a few hours after the incident. His second speech was in Newtown, Connecticut at a prayer vigil for the community. The last speech was held in the White House concerning gun control. In the speeches, he used rhetoric to appeal to his various audiences using purpose, audience, context, logos, ethos, and pathos. Before we start, let’s define these concepts.
Purpose, audience, and context are a few of the major concepts in a rhetoric essay. They help analyze the paper, and the meaning behind it. They ask the questions, ‘Who, What, Why?’ Primarily, purpose signifies the goal, or goals, of an argumentative text, in this case, the three speeches President Barack Obama gave. The purpose tells the reason why the text is composed and what it hopes to accomplish by the end of the reading. The purpose can be varied but is often used to inform or persuade. For example, the purpose of a STOP sign is to warn you of incoming danger. Secondly, audience means just what it says – the audience of the paper, who you’re writing to. There are three different types of audiences, judicial, deliberative, and epideictic. A judicial audience looks to the past to see how things happened. On the other
Eleven days before Christmas a child is usually happy, energetic, excited, and anxious to see what kinds of pleasant gifts are underneath the tree from “Santa.” No one in Newtown, Connecticut had a clue that 20 of Sandy Hook Elementary School’s students and six adults wouldn’t be seeing that precious day. Unfortunately on this peaceful Friday, December 14th , 2012, Adam Lanza took their lives. His motive is unknown. As police arrived to the scene, Lanza committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. This was the second-deadliest shooting in US history, after the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007. This shooting really hurt the nation and they wanted answers.
President Barack Obama then delivered three speeches following this tragedy. The first speech was only a few hours after the incident. His second speech was in Newtown, Connecticut at a prayer vigil for the community. The last speech was held in the White House concerning gun control. In the speeches, he used rhetoric to appeal to his various audiences using purpose, audience, context, logos, ethos, and pathos. Before we start, let’s define these concepts.
Purpose, audience, and context are a few of the major concepts in a rhetoric essay. They help analyze the paper, and the meaning behind it. They ask the questions, ‘Who, What, Why?’ Primarily, purpose signifies the goal, or goals, of an argumentative text, in this case, the three speeches President Barack Obama gave. The purpose tells the reason why the text is composed and what it hopes to accomplish by the end of the reading. The purpose can be varied but is often used to inform or persuade. For example, the purpose of a STOP sign is to warn you of incoming danger. Secondly, audience means just what it says – the audience of the paper, who you’re writing to. There are three different types of audiences, judicial, deliberative, and epideictic. A judicial audience looks to the past to see how things happened. On the other