Rhetorical Analysis Of A More Perfect Union By Peter Clark

1267 Words3 Pages

Roy Peter Clark, author of “A More Perfect Union”: Why It Worked, takes a stance on President Barack Obama’s speech while analyzing it. President Barack Obama delivered a speech titled “A More Perfect Union.” His speech focused on the prominent issue of racism in America. In this article, Clark talks about President Obama’s known power and brilliance. Clark makes references and comparisons to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and W.EB. DuBois. “A More Perfect Union” features writing techniques that makes the message more defined and effective. President Obama utilizes four closely related rhetorical strategies. Clark broadly explains the purpose of the rhetorical strategies. Allusion, parallelism, two-ness, and autobiography helped to shape President Obama’s speech that that was meant to create …show more content…

The rhetorical strategies he based his analysis on are hard to disagree with. Every point was backed up with clear, significant evidence. The comparisons he makes are ones I would have never thought of. Comparing Obama and Dr. King is a common thing in today’s time because of the positions they uphold while being African American. However, I have personally never compared the two in terms of their abilities to resonate a speech to both blacks and whites. Clark compares their use of patriotic terms throughout their speeches. Clark even compares Obama’s opening words of his speech to the opening words of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. W.E.B DuBois’ theory of two-ness also would have never crossed my mind while listening to Obama’s speech; even though there are multiple examples throughout it. Clark did an extremely good job at thoroughly analyzing Obama’s speech. His actual stance on the “A More Perfect Union” speech came off as confusing at first when he began to focus on the way Obama’s speeches are read vs. the way they sound; however, he cleared up confusion further on into the

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