Madeline Albright Rhetorical Analysis

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Stephany Saavedra Mrs. Stele Ap Lang 15 March 2024. In 1997 Madeline Albright gave a speech at Mount Holyoke College to the graduating class. She uses black-and-white thinking, anaphoras, historical events, and anecdotes to inspire and encourage the class of 97. Albright uses black-and-white thinking to analyze the extreme choices the graduates can make. According to Albright, individuals have two choices. They could be courageous and have faith, or be selfish and complacent. She is referring to the idea of “good” and “bad”. Although there is a gray area, she wants to encourage her audience to be courageous and stand up for their beliefs. Her use of free will and choice influences the audience to choose the “good option”. Albright uses anaphoras …show more content…

She wants her audience not to stop, that there is always something to do. The use of anaphoras emphasizes that they could have stopped, but instead, they kept working. This makes the audience remember that they can stop, but that there is always more. Albright connects historical events to the graduates to show how they stood up and fought to be better. She states that the U.S. could never “relax”, and keeps on working to reduce nuclear and chemical weapons. Albright connects with her graduates by encouraging them to do the same. She wants her audience to keep on working and to keep pushing through the obstacles they face as women for what they believe in. This gives the audience a sense of the need to keep going and encourages them to keep going. Albright uses anecdotes of women from all over the world fighting for their country to inspire the graduates to do the same. She shares stories of the women she has met across the world. Several women from Guatemala, Sarajevo, Burundi, and Burma are fighting for several reasons such as abuse, equality, and democracy. These stories empower and inspire the graduates by giving them a moral stance that motivates them. Albright used the stories to

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