Rhetorical Analysis Of Lincoln's Inaugural Address

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Lincoln’s address started in a gloomy tone. It seems as if he wanted to lower expectations that were being upheld by the people. Lincoln used a passive voice at the beginning of his speech which let him redirect the focus to not be on himself, but to be on the address itself. Though he did use personal pronouns in the first paragraph, it would also be the last he would use them in the speech. The paragraph showed a reserved ethos making it hard for the reader to connect to the president. The first paragraph in Lincoln’s speech was strictly all about what the speech would not be, and after he addressed that he would go on to say that he would not be making further “predictions” because he believed that they lead to false expectancy. In the first sentence, Lincoln stated that …show more content…

He wrote for both national and international audiences. The speech was written shortly before the Civil War ended when the Nation was divided. One of the main topics brought up in the writing was God himself. Lincoln said, “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God…” which represents the Nation as a whole, even though they are split. Lincoln uses the image of both a Bible and God, both being religious and holy figures, to influence the audience to believe that the nation is capable of being united once more. He uses words to describe God: almighty, firm, living and caring. These are general and abstract words. Though Lincoln does talk greatly about our religious figures, he does not have much good to say towards the war. When talking about the war Lincoln uses words such as offense, terrible, unrequited toil and mainly specific or concrete. These words are polysyllabic, meaning they contain more than one syllable. He uses such words to describe diction, to make to make important words stand out and emphasize the meaning of them. By choosing specific words for his speech, Lincoln can make his content more meaningful for his

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