Rhetorical Analysis Of Oprah Winfrey's Speech

497 Words1 Page

Oprah Winfrey adequately delivers her speech at the 75th Golden Globes when she reels in the audience with inspirational stories. As she argued for, "equitable race and gender representation in Hollywood, the fundamental need for a free press, and the importance of speaking out against harassment and assault", she sufficiently strategizes her arguments (Winfrey 1). Oprah's reason of argument is due to the events that had occurred prior to this day as a child. She was able to grab the attention of her audience by including logic, emotion, and persuasion in her speech.
For many centuries race had always been an issue when it came down to who was superior to who. Oprah reminisces on her childhood and remembers, "never [seeing] a black being celebrated like that", she maneuvers the use of emotion into her flash back by indicating that it was an ineffable feeling to experience that while she had struggles with her mother at home (Winfrey 1). The author portrays her monumental experience of being the first black women to win the same award as the black man whom she saw on TV as a child who inspired her. …show more content…

Without free press everyone would be believing lies and soaking up one-sided information. The author of this speech includes ethos in order to persuade the audience that, "speaking [the] truth is the most important tool we all have", meaning there are stories that are being told and published that aren't being completely honest (Winfrey 1). Ethos is further used by Oprah gathering past information of a case that was investigated by Rosa Parks that nobody else was willing to undertake. The men who raped Recy Taylor, "threatened to kill her", she uses this information to not only gather historical evidence but to get the audience on her side as well as make them emotional, using all three, logos, ethos, and pathos (Winfrey

Open Document