Rhetorical Analysis
Ask Not
Some consider the 1961 Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy to be one of the greatest speeches ever delivered. It contains the famous call to action “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Thurston Clark declares the speech to be “the greatest oration of any twentieth-century politician” (qtd in Carpenter 2).
James Humes states the speech truly shaped history, describing it as “brilliant eloquence” and inspiring “American hopes” for the future (Humes 207).
In analyzing this address, it is important to first know some background of President
Kennedy and his 1960 campaign, the global landscape of the time, and what he hoped to accomplish with this speech. Kennedy led a privileged life as the second son of Joseph
Kennedy, a third-generation Irish-American Catholic who made his fortune on Wall Street, in movie production and liquor imports (Giglio 2). John Kennedy attended Harvard and was a PT boat officer in World War II. He became a national hero when he rescued survivors from an
American boat sliced in half by a Japanese destroyer (Sorensen 15-16). He won his first campaign in 1946 as U. S. Representative from the 11th congressional district of Massachusetts.
Although he won the Democratic nomination in 1960, Kennedy faced significant problems for two main reasons: his religion (Catholic) and his youth (age 43). He tried to address the religion issue in an address to hostile protestant ministers in Houston, TX, but failed to get conservatives to vote for him. His performance in the first televised presidential debate with Richard Nixon, however, answered most questions about his maturity and discounted the “youth and
2
inexperience” argument. In that debate, he attacked the current administration’s foreign policy, which allowed the Soviet Union to dominate world affairs in the late 1950s. The cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union was the primary problem facing the
Some consider the 1961 Inaugural Address of President John F. Kennedy to be one of the greatest speeches ever delivered. It contains the famous call to action “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” Thurston Clark declares the speech to be “the greatest oration of any twentieth-century politician” (qtd in Carpenter 2).
James Humes states the speech truly shaped history, describing it as “brilliant eloquence” and inspiring “American hopes” for the future (Humes 207).
In analyzing this address, it is important to first know some background of President
Kennedy and his 1960 campaign, the global landscape of the time, and what he hoped to accomplish with this speech. Kennedy led a privileged life as the second son of Joseph
Kennedy, a third-generation Irish-American Catholic who made his fortune on Wall Street, in movie production and liquor imports (Giglio 2). John Kennedy attended Harvard and was a PT boat officer in World War II. He became a national hero when he rescued survivors from an
American boat sliced in half by a Japanese destroyer (Sorensen 15-16). He won his first campaign in 1946 as U. S. Representative from the 11th congressional district of Massachusetts.
Although he won the Democratic nomination in 1960, Kennedy faced significant problems for two main reasons: his religion (Catholic) and his youth (age 43). He tried to address the religion issue in an address to hostile protestant ministers in Houston, TX, but failed to get conservatives to vote for him. His performance in the first televised presidential debate with Richard Nixon, however, answered most questions about his maturity and discounted the “youth and
2
inexperience” argument. In that debate, he attacked the current administration’s foreign policy, which allowed the Soviet Union to dominate world affairs in the late 1950s. The cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union was the primary problem facing the