President John F Kennedy ran on a political platform during his campaign that focused on calling for stable wages and stable prices to boost the American economy to pull it out of a recession. Once he won the presidency, this view point continued and was implemented within Kennedy’s legislations. The economy was just starting to find its’ way out of the economic slumps when steel companies raised prices in 1962. This rise in prices would damage the US’ economy greatly, reversing the affects of Kennedy’s legislation. The president’s response was holding a news conference in which he questioned the steel companies’ choices to convince them to reverse their choices. Using parallelism, trustworthy sources and statistics, and all the Aristotle’s appeals. Parallelism and pathos within Kennedy’s speech structure is evident in multiple locations. He uses parallelism o show how much the nation was already doing to pull itself out of the economic recession and to stress how raising prices could have a negative effect on the economy. He uses the phrase, “When we are confronted… when we are devoting… when we are asking…,” to show that the nation was dedicating their entire beings to help the nation, but that the rise …show more content…
He has the audience infer that the steel companies raising their prices was what they were doing for their country, and what they were doing was not helping like Kennedy has wished. This reference back to something that had a huge impact on many people strengthens Kennedy’s point of view and helps him achieve his
Kennedy uses an analogy in the fifth and sixth paragraphs; he compares the entire history of man to a single half century “the 50,000 years of man¹s recorded history in a time span of but a half-century.” This analogy creates a sense of urgency and need for the space program, if the world is moving forwards so fast, if America doesn’t reach the moon first someone else will. This sentiment is highlighted by the quote “The exploration of space will go on ahead, whether we join in it or not.” Kennedy constantly piqued the curiosity of the crowd, using the appeal of the unknown. Referring to “the vast stretches of the unknown”. Kennedy also links the moon goal to the fabric of the nation, continually stating “This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.” And suggesting that failure would be betraying the founding fathers of the nation. Kennedy also uses humour at key stages, to break up the seriousness of the speech. The lines “Why does Rice play Texas” and “I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute.” In the first statement Kennedy is referring to a rival university’s football team, relating the crowd to Kennedy and his goals. The other example of humour is where he was talking about the high temperatures of the sun and only a sentence later tells the audience that they should stay
His use of an absolute and unwavering tone establishes an incompatibility between the interests of the public and the recent greedy actions of steel corporations. This creates an ‘us vs. them’ mentality, that Kennedy continuously emphasizes throughout his speech to further justify his opposition to steel companies as a defense for the “public interest.” After directly stating his opinion, Kennedy shifts his speech towards the current events of the time, citing the “grave crises in Berlin”, the Vietnam War, and the limitations on union members. This use of logic seeks to sway the audience to join his opposition to the 3.5 percent rise in steel prices.
He used a very selective vocabulary, purposely using emotionally charged words such as: “wholly unjustifiable and irresponsible defiance” (lines 4-5), “ruthless disregard” (line 82), and “restraint and sacrifice” (lines 14-15). By using words with strong connotation, he powers the emotions of his audience once again directing support for himself and appearing as the calm figurehead amongst the emotional chaos. He also makes his speech very personal by mentioning individual American families, literally using the phrase “every American family” (line 25). He appeals to the strong sense of patriotism in the American public by mentioning the four servicemen who died in Vietnam. Despite the fact that they are almost completely unrelated to the rise in steel prices and, if they were alive, would be unaffected by the rise in price, either. And yet, Kennedy mentions the servicemen to make the situation appear that much more dire. By mentioning the tragic deaths of these men, Kennedy aims to trigger a strong emotional response in his audience that would turn into support for
In paragraph two he states ”when we are confronted with grave crisis in Berlin and Southeast Asia, when we are devoting our energies to economic recovery and stability, when we are asking reservists to leave their homes and families for months on end…” President Kennedy starts each of his statements with “when we are” to address the sacrifices the people are making while the steel companies prioritizes in this dark hour, which shows they don’t care about their nation. He then shows us how this would be worsened even further if the steel companies maintained the high prices. Kennedy also states “It would make it more difficult for American goods to compete in foreign markets, more difficult to withstand competition from foreign imports, and thus more difficult to improve our balance of payments position…” He then repeatedly starts off with the phrase “more difficult.” This repetition, incorporated with facts, proves his point that the steel companies were unpatriotic and greedy because he shows how much trouble and difficulty the rise in steel companies would cause. Besides using the strategy of repeating words and phrases, Kennedy also uses statistics to achieve his argument.
During the early 1960’s, the United States was emerging from a recession. Many people were struggling, but some big businesses were taking advantage of the economic distress. On April 11th, 1962, President John F. Kennedy held a news conference to talk about such big businesses, namely, steel companies. President Kennedy criticized these companies for increasing the price of steel by 3.5 percent. By appealing compellingly to logos, effectively to pathos, and rivetingly to ethos, President John F. Kennedy argues that the price increase of steel during the hard times by large companies has been a blatant disregard for their public responsibilities during an emerging recession.
John F Kennedy delivered one of the finest speeches on January 20, 1961 after being sworn into office. His inauguration speech was so powerful that it captured the entire nations attention, and quotes from it are still remembered by people today. It is one of the finest speeches ever written. It provides a strong appeal to pathos, ethos and logos, and it is because of this that people who never heard the speech can quote lines from it.
Parallelism is also used in this speech. Lincoln said “and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” In this case, the repeated grammatical element in the series of three phrases is a prepositional phrase because each phrase begins with a preposition, “of,” “by,” and “for” followed by the object of the preposition “the people”. The effect would have been different if he had used “and that a democracy shall not perish from the earth.”
Kennedy’s brilliant use of pathos, parallelism, antithesis, and varied syntax successfully conveys his ambitions and hopes for America, as it makes Kennedy’s speech a very memorable one in history.
In focusing on the National economy and ending the recession, Kennedy accomplished a meek increase to the minimum wages for workers, during his presidency. But, he lost the confidence of business leaders in 1962, by seeking to rollback what the administration regarded as excessive price increases within the steel trade. Although, he succeeded in his direct objective, this did not come without a price. President Kennedy ultimately, alienated an important source of support by later calling for a large tax cut to grant capital to large corporations, meant for stimulating the economy (Hoagland, 2008).
In a time where sacrifices were asked of the American people by John F. Kennedy, greedy steel tycoons decided to raise the prices of their goods for personal gain. In response to this, Kennedy composed a passage in which he uses a condescending tone, antithesis, and personification to attempt to convince the steel companies to lower their prices.
In Kennedy’s speech, he had rhetorical devices such as plain folks appeal, repetition, and pathos. He used plain folk appeal by using the audience’s language of German by saying “Ich bin ein Berliner” (par. 3). Him saying “I am a Berliner” strengthens his argument, as it makes President Kennedy feel like a normal person as he is with the people of Berlin. He used repetition when he was going against communism and stated that all people who disagree should “...come to Berlin” (par. 5). This use of repetition emphasizes Kennedy’s argument and helps him connect with the audience. Kennedy used the persuasive technique of pathos when he was saying that the wall was “... separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together” (par. 6). This makes the audience feel a sense of pity towards the families who have been separated by the Berlin Wall. To conclude, Kennedy had a strong use of various different rhetorical
On April 11, 1962, John F. Kennedy held a news conference in which he discussed the hike in steel prices despite the fact that he repeatedly called for stable prices and wages as part of the program of national sacrifice due to it being a period of economic distress. After analyzing Kennedy’s remarks diligently, it is evident that he used the rhetorical strategies of syntax, language, and details to develop and strengthen his purpose throughout his speech.
In John F. Kennedy’s speech, he voices his tremendously strong opinion on steel companies, and why the steel prices should be drastically lowered. It is evident through his literary strategies that he is outraged at the steel companies. Kennedy is so distraught due to the fact that he has inquired about stable prices constantly, yet the steel companies still decided to raise steel prices by 3.5 percent. This price raise is extremely unnecessary, especially since it would be detrimental to American citizens which JFK acknowledges through his speech. John F. Kennedy employs various strategies that strongly appeal to the ethics, logic, and patriotism of the American citizens.
The first document is John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address. He uses parallelism to help keep the reader's attention. He describes the “power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life,” proceeding to describe how he plans to use that power to help free the peoples world. Because he takes the time to describe all this, it makes the readers think that he cares about their opinions and it leaves a good impact. Kennedy speaks about the advancements made in technological warfare and partitions with other countries to set aside unnecessary reasons of aggression before total world annihilation happens due to an accidental or intentional triggering of a nuclear weapon.JFK uses this pathos to help his readers understand just how important this really is. John also speaks to those who will stand alongside the United States. This speech is directed to all people of
Kennedy ,is very straightforward in his diction. He leaves no mystery in his words or meaning, in contrast to Anna Quindlen. For instance when talking about how the American economy has profited from the immigrant’s contribution he gives a thorough list to support his point. “Industrialists: Andrew Carnegie (Scot), in the steel industry; John Jacob Astor (German), in the fur trade; Michael Cudahy (Irish), of the meat packing industry; the Du Ponts (French), of the munitions and chemical industry; Charles L. Fleischmann (Hungarian), of the yeast buisness, David Sarnoff (Russian), of the radio industry; and William S. Knudsen (Danish), of the automobile industry,” (Kennedy 6). As you can clearly see, there is nothing to think about or question here. Kennedy gives you his point without trying to convey another