Rhetorical Analysis of Jfk's Inaugural Address

Rhetorical Analysis of JFK's Inaugural Speech

During the time JFK was elected president, our country was going through many hardships. After recovering from the Cold war, America needed a leader who would help bring peace and unity to the country. His Inaugural speech was encouraging and attempted to persuade the American's citizens to do just that. His speech gave them comfort and confidence in him, as a leader that they desperately needed at the time. He used many rhetorical strategies in his famous inaugural speech in order to convey his message and persuade the American people. Several of these were his use of antithesis and parallelism, hortative and imperative sentences, and also amphora. JFK utilizes antithesis and parallelism many times in his speech to add strength to it. A few examples of this are "To those old allies"; "to those new allies"; "We shall support any friend, oppose any foe"; "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich"; and the most famous, " Ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country." The use of this rhetorical strategy used many times in his speech sets a balanced contrast of his ideas by setting two opposites against each other and the parallel structure demonstrated makes it more rhythmic. Kennedy also uses hortative and imperative sentence structure many times in his speech. Hortative sentences are sentences that urge or call people to action. He uses phrases like "let us," "Let both sides." to encourage people to take action in the earlier part of his speech. Then later on, he uses imperative sentence structure to encourage people to think individually. An example of this being, "Ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country." Another rhetorical strategy used many times in this speech is amphora, which is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines. An example of this used by Kennedy is "not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need- not as a call to battle, though embattled we are." (not as a call to....) And also, the repetition of "Let us" at the beginning of multiple sentences. This draws your attention to each of the sentences because of the repetition and emphasizes the importance of his next idea. JFK effectively used many different rhetorical strategies and in doing so, was able to get his point across and deliver one of the most powerful speeches of all time. His inaugural address gave the American people hope and faith in their new leader after his hard-fought campaign and the difficult time America was in. His use of rhetorical strategies like antithesis and parallel structure, hortative and imperative sentence structure, and amphora helps him to achieve his goal of unifying the American people and encouraging peace.