Rhetorical Analysis Of John F. Kennedy's Cold War

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John F. Kennedy’s central argument in his inaugural speech is that America needs to act. During this time the Cold War was occurring, causing both America and the Soviet Union to compete in an arms race to see who could make the most nuclear weapons. Kennedy states that America needs to fight for freedom while also negotiating peace with communist countries, especially the Soviet Union. Kennedy does not want a nuclear war to occur so he wants peace before another world war happens. Kennedy also talks about helping the poor people in other countries. In the end Kennedy urges American citizens to help out in any way they can. Even though Kennedy does use pathos and ethos more than logos, it is the combination of all three that make his argument Kennedy feels that the way to help free societies stay free is to help out the poor. When Kennedy is talking about helping out the poor, he states that we should do it “not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes but because it is right” (Kennedy 1). Kennedy wants to reassure everyone that he does not have any selfish intent just because he is advocating for helping other countries with their poverty issue. He wants people to understand that poverty is a big issue that needs to be addressed for the betterment of the world as a whole. This increases Kennedy’s ethos because it shows that the future president is compassionate and cares for others over himself. Kennedy also makes you feel sad for all the people in poverty and it makes you want to help. The words and phrases he uses to help secure the pathos because of how extreme his word choice is. For example, when Kennedy first talks about the poor, he chooses to say that the poor people around the world are “struggling to break the bonds of mass misery” (Kennedy 1). Instead of him just saying that the poor people need help because they are poor, he decides to phrase it to show how the poverty effects them. The poverty is so bad that they are practical bond to the miserable place they live currently. He later talks about helping free countries cast “off the chains of poverty” (Kennedy 1). This is so much more descriptive than just saying that we will help the poor. It gives the listener/reader an image of a person who is in chains. It creates an image that the person is enslaved by their poverty and during this time slavery was already hated. More people will agree with Kennedy on helping the poor because they have a distaste for slavery now they see poverty as

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