A Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Oprah Winfrey

Rhetorical analysis

In today’s society “failure” is dreaded by most people. In 2013 Oprah Winfrey deliver “The Harvard Commencement Speech” and in 2008 she spoke “The Stanford Commencement Speech,” which both spoke about overcoming failure. Throughout these speeches, the audience learns that failure is something everyone will experience. Winfrey teaches readers that failure may hurt, but failure helps everyone learn from their mistakes and allows them to become a better person. Winfrey tells readers about a time when she failed and instead of feeling sorry for herself, she allowed herself to exceed expectations and change her failure into something spectacular. Oprah Winfrey is an effective speaker because she uses rhetorical devices and

rhetorical strategies that encourage the students that failure can be overcome.
Winfrey uses metaphors in her speeches to persuades her audience that failure can be overturned.

Metaphors make speeches more personal, more memorable and more persuasive, they create a sense of familiarity, trigger emotions, and motivate the audience. They also provide a new perspective and a new meaning that can influence the audience to reconsidered their beliefs on a certain topic. In “The Harvard Commencement Speech” Winfrey says “Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.” She uses a metaphor to motivate the audience and try to make them have a new outlook on failure. She's tells her audience that failure just life telling everyone to make a different decision. Winfrey encourages the students by explaining that failure may be difficult to overcome, but it's a part of life. Metaphors are also used to create a connection of the idea to an object that the audience already knows. In “The Stanford Commencement Speech” to creates a sense of familiarity by saying “what I know now is that feelings are really your internal GPS system for life.” A GPS system is mundane, her audience is familiar with a GPS, which allows a connection between failure or feelings with a GPS. When Winfrey uses the metaphor she makes it easier for her audience to understand and remember her message. Metaphors are effective in speeches because they produce interest in the audience, draw attention to certain ideas, and advancing the flow of

words.
The rhetorical strategy pathos is used by Winfrey to advocate the students into realizing that failure and difficult times can be overpowered. Pathos appeals to an audience’s needs, values, and emotional appeal. Pathos emphasises reasons while triggering the audience's emotions. Winfrey incorporates pathos in “The Stanford Commencement” and in “The Harvard Commencement Speech”to encourage her audience. She says “ Because all of you know how the story of how this great school came to be, how the Stanfords lost their only child to typhoid at the age of 15. They had every right and they had every reason to turn their backs against the world at that time, but instead, they channeled their grief and their pain into an act of grace.” She encourages her audience by saying that the Stanfords, who lost their son was able to change the world. Pathos is present because whenever someone loses their child people feel a sense of grief and melancholy. In “The Harvard Commencement Speech” Winfrey says “It was an interview with David and Francine Wheeler. They lost their son, Ben, in the Sandy Hook tragedy. And even though gun safety legislation to strengthen checks had just been voted down in Congress at the time that they were doing this interview they talked about how they refused to be discouraged.” In both speeches Winfrey uses events that trigger emotions, as in losing a child. She then tells her audience that the parents of these kids refused to be depressed and channeled their emotions into actions that could change the world. Although, pathos is involved with appealing to the audience's emotions, it can also be turned around and forced into something that helps advocate the audience.
Rhetorical devices and rhetorical strategies are not the only way Winfrey creates an effective speech; also uses logical fallacies. For example, Winfrey uses the logical fallacies red herring throughout both her speeches. A red herring happens when a speaker, halfway through their argument goes off on a tangent, rising an unrelated side issue that can distract the audience from the main point. Winfrey uses a red herring when she starts talking about failure and how to overcome them, but then starts talking about an unrelated issue, the time she got her first job and some of the issues she had to overcome throughout her job, however these issues to her original claim. Logical fallacies are flaws in reasoning that led to illogical statements. Logical fallacies can appear as reasonable statements, but they are designed to manipulate the audience. Oprah Winfrey overall had an effective speech that persuade the students into thinking failure can be overcome, however she did use a logical fallacy that weakened her argument.