A Rhetorical Analysis of Mary Fisher 's "A Whisper of AIDS" Speech
Mary Fisher is an American author, artist, and political activist born in 1948. She opted to become an outspoken HIV/AIDS activist after contracting AIDS from her second husband. She is a daughter of the wealthy and powerful republican fundraiser Max Fisher. The speech entitled “A Whisper of AIDS”; she delivered it in Houston, TX on 19 August during the Republican National Convention Address. She delivered this speech and set up nearness and full focus of her audience. Mary Fisher uses appeals of pathos, information, and imagery to shape her ethic sound and response towards this rhetorical situation of HIV/AIDS.
Mary Fisher opened her speech by informing the audience those three months ahead of the moment she had asked the Republican Party to “lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of HIV/AIDs.” This metaphoric phrase mainly engages the audience since this shows a person who is up to a specific
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Because I was not a gay, I was not at risk. Because I did not inject drugs, I was not at risk.” People thought these stereotypes about contracting the virus. She describes to them clearly that AIDS is a disease for all humans and it does not discriminate. She identified with the audience’s humanity severally where she asked them, “are you human? Because people with HIV have not entered some alien state of being. They are human.” She reminded them that people infected with AIDS were just like any other human and they required care. She likened people who did not support the HIV positive with those who did not support the prosecuted Jewish population during the Holocaust. In the article “The Impact of Change”, AIDS is described as an epidemic that has it origin in Africa but it was greatly spreading in the U.S. Altman discourages the stereotype that AIDS is a disease for the homosexuals and drug
Overall, Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a convincing speech on women’s rights at the U.N. World Conference by using the key rhetorical techniques ethos, pathos, logos, and anaphora’s. The use of these techniques helped the audience believe in the cause of which Clinton was speaking about, sympathize for situations females were being put through, and working to strive towards equal rights for everyone. Clinton used the same stance throughout her speech and raised her voice at points in her speech that needed
One important scene in the film ‘The Age of Aids’ is “Port Au Prince, Haiti”. In this scene it outlines the conditions in Haiti, which were very poor and it turn left the city defenseless against the new disease. In 70’s and 80’s the disease began to be seen by doctors and priests who were being sought after to cure a unseen disease which left the people with the “look of death, [making them] so skinny you could see their bones”. The scene then goes on to take a look at one of the first HIV clinics in Port Au Prince, which was opened in the roughest parts of town. One of the surprising things that this clinic found when they were looking at the patients coming in was that the mean they were analyzing had more contact with women then they had with men. This was extremely interesting because this was completely different from what the pattern of the disease had been in the US. The doctors believed this was because homosexual males had been coming into Haiti as tourists and where having sex with locals, who in comparison didn’t call themselves homosexuals because even though they had been having sex with men, the number of women they were having sex with greatly outnumbered the men. This was extremely important because it allowed people to open their eyes, and realize that this was not a homosexual disease, that anyone could get the disease. And that’s exactly what happened within the Haitian community. Within three years the disease had spread across the entire island effects all aspects of society. This scene was effective because it is able to change a viewer with little knowledge of the disease to understand how doctors were able to come to the conclusion that the disease was not in fact a homosexual ...
Angela Davis, a renowned political and civil rights activist, was invited in 2012 to Pitzer College to give the commencement speech to the graduating class. Her speech touched on important points in her life as well as many of the values she fought for and believe in. I have never heard her speak before watching this commencement address, and my initial thoughts when hearing her speech was that she was old. Her speech was slow and at first a little boring. However, as her commencement continued onward, she started to get more into rhythm and while she stayed relatively slow, the power behind her words as she spoke made me want to listen more to what she had to say. Angela Davis has had an interesting history as an activist and educator, and
The Movie “And the Band Played On” is the framework of the earliest years of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Also known as the Gay disease. The movie examines HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States in the earlier 1980’s and emphasizes on three crucial components. An immunologist with knowledge in eradicating smallpox and containing the Ebola virus, joins the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to attempt and recognize just what this disease is. The film also deals the administration and government side that does not seem to care. The homosexual community in San Francisco is separated on the nature of the disease but also want to know what should be done
Helen Keller, against all odds, became a mouthpiece for many causes in the early to mid-twentieth century. She advocated for causes such as building institutions for the blind, schools for the deaf, women’s suffrage and pacifism. When America was in the most desperate of times, her voice stood out. Helen Keller spoke at Carnegie Hall in New York raising her voice in protest of America’s decision to join the World War. The purpose of this paper will analyze the devices and methods Keller used in her speech to create a good ethos, pathos, and logos.
(Allen et al., 2000) The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a clinical situation that requires the ethical principle Justice to be implemented. AIDS can be transmitted by sexual activity, intravenous (IV) drug use, and passed from mother to child. Due to the judgments and fears from the general population and some healthcare professionals, patients who have this disease may find themselves suffering from discrimination in many ways of their lives. This discrimination comes from the stigma placed by the factors in which AIDS is mainly spread. These factors are poverty, homelessness, illiteracy, prostitution, human-trafficking, which create the labels like the “drug user” or “homosexual”.
...ar. "Hiv/Aids Managing A Pandemic." Americas 61.2 (2009): 20-27. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
It takes multiple people to try to fight such a pervasive issue, and by placing blame and establishing guilt in the audience, he is having them rethink their priorities and hopes to establish a group of people who are willing to fight on behalf of those suffering from HIV-AIDS. Through the use of anaphora, Lewis is able to put together what life will be like for women in Africa if they are able to receive the proper treatments. He says, “The idea that women will have a way of re-asserting control over their own sexuality, the idea that they will be able to defend their bodily health, the idea that women will have a course of prevention to follow which results in saving their lives…” By bringing medication to the women of Africa and also discovering a microbicide to stop HIV in its’ tracks will positively impact the lives of millions of women. No longer will they have to fear contracting a virus that is ultimately a death sentence; no longer will they have to give up their dreams of becoming mothers because they wish not to spread the virus to their child; no longer will they be considered vulnerable and be easily taken advantage of by
The goal of Hillary’s speech is to persuade her audience that her ideas are valid, by using ethos, pathos, and logos. Hillary is the First Lady and Senator, she shows credibility as an influential activist for woman rights. “Over the past 25 years, I have worked persistently on issues relating to women, children, and families. Over the past two and a half years, I’ve had the opportunity to learn more about the challenges facing women in my country and around the world” (Clinton 2).
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, along with many other women, packed into a convention on a hot July day to all fight for a common cause; their rights. At the first Women’s Rights convention, Stanton gave a heroic speech that motivated the fight for the cause to be even stronger. Through Stanton’s appliances of rhetorical devices such as emotional, logical, and ethical appeals, she was able to her win her point, change the opinions of many, and persuade people to follow her.
The movie, And the Band Played On, portrays a current issue the U.S. health care system face: the effects of societal perceptions of people who should receive health care support. Those perceived as undeserving are disregarded. Homosexual men were the first to be affected by AIDS in the US, and because of this, the stigma of homosexuality prevented developing health care policy to control the epidemic. Homosexuality was, and to a lesser extent now, not widely accepted. Marginalizing gay individuals was seen in the movie at the beginning, when media coverage on AIDs would not include “homosexual” within the news title (Pillsbury, Sanford, & Spottiswoode, 1993). This represents how media has to be marketed; the broader public will not be interested if a new disease only affects an undesirable population. Another example of this negligence is seen when Phillip Burton is asked to introduce a bill on AIDS. He agrees, but does not hesitate to retort, “They couldn’t get a dime out of this administration with the name gay on it” (Pillsbury, Sanford, & Spottiswoode, 1993). Finally, in order to change the perception, at the CDC conference with blood agencies, they renamed gay related immune deficiency (GRID) to AIDS, and the film cuts to news segments finally covering
Moreover, Treichler maintains that although society has become more progressive in its understanding that AIDS is a heterosexual disease just as much as a homosexual one, this advancement does not necessarily disintegrate the “fantasy” surrounding the issue (i.e. ideas about “safer sex”, etc.) Apprehending what one learns from science will obviously be very beneficial to one’s grasping the concept of AIDS in its most basic form, but using this information self-consciously and pragmatically – and knowing that the sometimes contradictory information one takes in might not necessarily be utilizing the correct discourse signifying what AIDS “really” means – will allow one to make sense of the disease as a complete, organized whole.
During the time when the general public believes the only way to contract HIV/AIDS is to be homosexual, an addict, or prostitute, Fisher being a white, heterosexual, married mother of two from an upper-class family who contracted the virus from her husband is herself the certifying ethos of this speech (1). She tactfully uses her own circumstances and diagnosis to embody the plight of all in the AIDS community and shows that no one is exempt from this deadly disease. She emphatically states that HIV does not care about race, age, gender, sexual orientation, or political affiliation; all that it asks is “Are you human?” (2). She ceases to be the exception and gains the attention and respect of the American people when she aligns herself with others with HIV/AIDS with her statement:
One day she was in good health, and the next her condition was quickly deteriorating. Conversely, her emotional response to having her illness shared without her knowledge was completely expected. Anyone harboring that kind of burden does not want it shared without their consent. I found her relationship with the HIV virus to be accurate, especially in her feelings of loneliness and ability to conquer them. The movie also does a splendid job of depicting HIV itself, from Robin’s thinning hair to Jane and Holly’s conversations about her T cells – also known as CD4 cells. Further research at aids.gov has taught me a higher CD4 cell count means someone’s HIV is under control, which perfectly matches the movie’s dialogue (“CD4 Count”). This movie primarily taught me how HIV/AIDS affects the lives of those infected. Robin’s struggle proves the disease impacts all facets of life, whether romantic, social, or emotional. She did not allow herself to plan a future, because she never expected to have one, and she pushed away family and friends so they would not get hurt. I learned suffering from HIV/AIDS can be a lonely existence, and survivors need support to stay strong. Her story argues against common misconceptions about AIDS; she proves it is not just a disease for homosexual men or those who have excessive sex. One time with a man was enough for her to contract the virus. Having
From the moment scientists identified HIV and AIDS, social responses of fear, denial, stigma and discrimination have accompanied the epidemic. Discrimination has spread rapidly, fuelling anxiety and prejudice against the groups most affected, as well as those living with HIV or AIDS. It goes without saying that HIV and AIDS are as much about social phenomena as they are about biological and medical concerns. Across the world the global epidemic of HIV/AIDS has shown itself capable of triggering responses of compassion, solidarity and support, bringing out the best in people, their families and communities. But the disease is also associated with stigma, repression and discrimination, as individuals affected (or believed to be affected) by HIV have been rejected by their families, their loved ones and their communities. This rejection holds as true in the rich countries of the north as it does in the poorer countries of the south.