A Whisper of AIDS: The Speech that Lifted the Silence

657 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The history of hiv essay

Nine years. It took nearly a decade, and more than two hundred thousand Americans’ deaths until a brave soul spoke up to encourage people to speak up about AIDS. “A Whisper of AIDS” was written to encourage people to “lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of HIV/AIDS” (Fisher). The effectiveness of this speech lies in its addressing of a problem that has affected many people not only in the 1980s, more than thirty years ago, but has continued to even in the 21st century, and through its use of many rhetorical devices it makes for a convincing and heart wrenching speech.
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). These two conditions have caused so much heartache and pain since the 1980s. One of the first signs of AIDS in America was in 1981, and was found in a homosexual man that was inflicted with Pneumocystis pneumonia, a fungal pneumonia. Upon inspection, the doctor observed that the man did not have any helper cells; cells that would help the ailed young man fight the infection. Following this several other young homosexual men were admitted to hospitals with the same problem. The following year hemophiliacs were observed to have been inflicted with the same problem and this disease was finally given a name, AIDS. The year 1983 brought about the identification of the virus, HIV. Even to this day many AIDS is still a problem that continues to affect many people.
Mary Fisher was the stepdaughter of the multimillionaire Max Fisher. She worked in as a television producer and assistant to President Gerald Ford, as well as a successful artist. The year after her divorce from her second husband, she soon learned that she had contracted HIV from him. Following this ...

... middle of paper ...

...h.html>.
"Bio." Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. .
Fisher, Mary. “A Whisper of AIDS.” Republican National Convention. Houston Astrodome, Houston, TX. 19 Aug 1992. Address.
"Gifts of Speech - Mary Fisher." Gifts of Speech - Mary Fisher. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2014. .
"Mary Fisher's Whisper of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos." Clburdettwrites. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .
"Mr. Newman's Digital Rhetorical Symposium." : Mary Fisher’s “A Whisper of AIDS” Speech Analysis. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .
PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. .

Show More
Related

  • Characteristics And Imagery In Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

    281 Words  | 1 Pages

    Throughout the passages, Laurie Halse Anderson establishes the Central Idea through the use of Characteristics and Imagery, revealing that the loudest words are the ones that aren’t spoken.

    Read More

  • Comparison of Turkeys in the Kitchen and You Just Walk on By Essays

    1651 Words  | 4 Pages

    Carstarphen, Meta G., and Susan C. Zavoina. Sexual Rhetoric: Media Perspectives on Sexuality, Gender, and Identity. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999. Print.

    Read More

  • A Comparison of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Dead Poets Society

    2168 Words  | 5 Pages

    3.Graham, Judith, ed. Current Biography Yearbook Vol. 1962, New York: The H.W Wilson Company, 1993

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Strategies Used in The Morality of Birth Control Speech by Margaret Sanger

    974 Words  | 2 Pages

    Margaret Sanger was an inspiring speaker, and through her obvious manipulation, the tools of ethos, pathos, and logos were once more effective. I really enjoyed analyzing the strategies used in her speech, but I can’t help but ponder her questions previously mentioned in this piece of work. In a day and age where women were beat down for our gender, I do imagine Sanger suffered ridicule; alas, she pulled through to create a masterpiece, full of manipulation, persuasion, and truth.

    Read More

  • Tragic Hero in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    Turner Sharp, Michele. If It Be a Monster Birth: Reading and Literary Property in Mary

    Read More

  • Anne Rowlandson The American Voice Analysis

    1472 Words  | 3 Pages

    Narratives such as Rowlandson’s gave a voice to women in the realm of written words, but at the cost of the Native voice. According to the website www.maryrowlandson.com,

    Read More

  • Flannery O'connor

    1313 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mary Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925 into one of the oldest and most prominent Catholic families in Georgia. She was the only child of Edward, a real estate appraiser, and Regina O’Connor. The year after the family moved to Milledgeville in 1940, Flannery’s father contracted and died of lupus. She and her father had always had a close relationship, and 15-year-old Flannery was devastated (Gordon). Catholicism was always a huge aspect of life for the O’Connor family, living across the street from a cathedral and growing up in the Bible Belt (Liukkonen). Flannery attended parochial schools until entering the Georgia State College for Women, where she entered into an accelerated three-year program as a day student (Gordon). She graduated with a Social Sciences degree in 1945 and left Milledgeville for the State University of Iowa where she had been accepted in Paul Engle’s prestigious Writers Workshop. (“Flannery O’Connor”). Flannery devoted herself to what she loved most, writing, though she spent a great deal of her youth drawing pictures for a career as a cartoonist (Liukkonen). It was at this ...

    Read More

  • Critique of Film And the Band Played On

    340 Words  | 1 Pages

    The medical community had much trouble in the progress of researching the disease. In the beginning and for a period of time, the disease had no name. This was partly because no one really wanted to announce that a new disease had been discovered. After being dubbed “GRID”, an acronym singling out gays, it was changed when it was finally discovered that AIDS could be transmitted though blood transfusions and IV drug use. There was also an amazing display of medical misconduct as the head of one laboratory in the US engaged in a competition-like struggle with a lab in Paris in the research of the disease. When he finally agreed to collaborate with the French, he announced discoveries ahead of time and took all the credit for himself. This led to a long legal action that delayed much of the research of AIDS and caused many people to “die of red tape.”

    Read More

  • A Social Worker's Perspective on the Gay and Lesbian Community

    1771 Words  | 4 Pages

    Kayal, Philip. 1993. Bearing Witness. Gay Men's Health Crisis and the Politics of AIDS. Westview Press. San Francisco.

    Read More

  • Contrasting Outlooks in Dream of the Rood and The Wanderer

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dockray-Miller, Mary. "The Feminized Cross of 'The Dream of the Rood.'" Philological Quarterly 76 (1997): 1-18.

    Read More

  • The Power of Angels in America

    2550 Words  | 6 Pages

    "Demanding that life near AIDS is an inextricably other reality denies our ability to recreate a sustaining culture and social structures, even as we are daily required to devote such time to the details of the AIDS crisis." -Cindy Patton

    Read More

  • Health Care Reform

    2212 Words  | 5 Pages

    During Clinton’s speech, he mentioned an individual who sent in a letter about his health care situation and his name was Kerry Kennedy. Kennedy was a small business owner who employed...

    Read More

  • An Analysis of Mary Fisher's Speech, A Whisper of Aids

    657 Words  | 2 Pages

    In retrospect, Fisher’s speech, especially its ethos, would not been as effective if she wasn’t a married mother of two who became HIV-positive by her husband. Her call to the American people to have “the strength to act wisely when we are most afraid leaves no question to what must be done in breaking the silence regarding AIDS, and the action that must be taken to prevent further devastation (3). She successfully uses Aristotle’s Rhetorical appeals to transcend the public’s barriers against the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the people afflicted with the disease.

    Read More

  • Does Technology Yield More Harm Or More Good In Our Lives?

    1537 Words  | 4 Pages

    Collins, Sara (1993, June 7). Saving lives isn't cheap. U.S. News & World Report, p. 56.

    Read More

  • HIV Speech

    733 Words  | 2 Pages

    HIV Speech It kills over 300,000 people a year. It can affect anyone regardless. of your race, gender, or age. It cannot be seen, treated, readily.

    Read More

More about A Whisper of AIDS: The Speech that Lifted the Silence

Open Document