Ellen DeGeneres is a famous actress, writer, comedian, producer, and talk-show host. She is most well-known for her talk-show, self-titled, The Ellen Show. Before The Ellen Show, she did stand-up comedy and also had her own Sitcom. On May 11, 2009, Ellen was presented with the opportunity to give a commencement speech to the Tulane University Graduating Class of 2009. Ellen, having lived in New Orleans herself, happily agreed. In this speech, Ellen tried to persuade that group of college students who were about to begin the next chapter of their lives to be themselves and to be nothing but who they truly are. She was successful in doing this with her use of humor, storytelling, and the future tense.
Comedy, although it may seem silly, can
…show more content…
actually aid in building a speech with successful rhetoric. According to Thank You for Arguing, “Humor ranks above all the other emotions in persuasiveness, in part because it works the best at improving your ethos” (Heinrichs, 87). Since Ellen is a comedian, she is comfortable using humor, and incorporates this into the entirety of her speech. One example of this is right at the beginning, during the introduction. “And thank you to all the graduating Class of 2009, I realize most of you are hungover and have splitting headaches and haven’t slept since Fat Tuesday, but you can’t graduate ‘til I finish, so listen up” (DeGeneres). Humor in rhetoric is often used to relax the audience, and can also be used to change the minds and emotions of the target audience. In the above example, Ellen is using humor to warm up her audience. Since she places this joke towards the beginning of her speech she is using it to calm down her audience and to make them more receptive to what she is about to say in the rest of her speech. She uses a joke that is targeted towards her specific audience as well. This audience consists of college students in New Orleans. This is why she mentions drinking, a common phenomenon amongst college age students, and Fat Tuesday, another name for Marti Gras, which is a huge yearly celebration in New Orleans. She uses this at the beginning of her speech in order to get the students to relax and in order to relate to them. Relating to the audience allowed Ellen to make the students more comfortable and to allow them to build a trust with her. Ellen continues to use humor throughout her speech, both to calm her audience and to persuade them to adopt the same mindset that she has. Along with humor, storytelling is also a tactic commonly used in a rhetorical piece.
“Aristotle said that one of the most effective mood changers is detailed narrative” (83). The more details that the persuader includes in their story, the more effective the story will be in persuading the audience. Going along with that, the more detailed the story is, the more real it feels to the audience. It also helps if the story involves the speaker directly. Ellen did both of these things. She told a personal story about her own life. “I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and the way I ended up on this path was from a very tragic event. I was maybe 19, and my girlfriend at the time was killed in a car accident” (DeGeneres). Storytelling can be used for every emotion. With this story, it begins with a very sad event. She explains in detail what was happening at the time and by doing that the audience can imagine how she must have felt. “Yet, I was getting letters from kids that almost committed suicide, but didn’t because of what I did. And I realized that I had a purpose” (DeGeneres). The “what I did” that she is referring to is coming out as gay. Her story ended on a brighter and more hopeful note. She started with no money, began doing stand-up, received her own sitcom, lost that sitcom after coming out as gay, and now she has an extremely successful talk show and inspires so many people to keep going when they feel like giving up and to embrace who they are. She has had her ups and downs, as everyone does. Which is what makes her story relatable. Everyone goes through bumps along the way. Her story gives anyone listening hope that everything will turn out okay, no matter how bad it may seem right now. She explained that she had to hit rock bottom in order to see that the most important thing is being yourself. She utilized pathos, or argument by emotion, and utilized it well. She persuaded everyone in that audience to be themselves, even if they are
scared. The final important aspect of a rhetorical piece is the art of using tenses. The tense that Ellen chooses to use a lot in her commencement speech is the future tense, also known as deliberative argument. This tense gives the audience a choice. She uses this tactic a lot in her concluding paragraphs. “But my idea of success is different today. And as you grow, you’ll realize the definition of success” (DeGeneres). She also gives a lot of advice to the students in her conclusion. She gives her them a choice to find their definition of success, as well as challenges them to be who they are and to show the world their brain. She also reassures them that they will be fine and everything will turn out okay. Overall, Ellen did a very good job in getting her point across to her audience. She used a variety of different techniques in order to get her audience to listen to her, relate to her, and take her advice. She implemented humor, storytelling, and the future tense in order to construct a successful speech that encouraged the graduating class to be true to themselves no matter how scary, and to find their definition of success even if it takes hitting rock bottom to get there.
In 102 Minutes, Chapter 7, authors Dwyer and Flynn use ethos, logos, and pathos to appeal to the readers’ consciences, minds and hearts regarding what happened to the people inside the Twin Towers on 9/11. Of particular interest are the following uses of the three appeals.
Jane the virgin is a show about a woman who had her life planned out the way she wanted until it made a spiraling turn due to unfortunate events. When Jane was a young girl, she had made a promise to her grandma that she would save her virginity until marriage. Unfortunately, during a doctor's check up she was artificially inseminated. After she agreed to keep the baby her relationship with her finance when down the hill. Keeping the baby also caused her school work to be a little harder for her. An examination of Jane the virgin will demonstrate the concepts of process of listening, the benefits of power and being in denial.
inspired. What makes ethos so prevalent in Ellen’s’ speech is that she is now a
In the book Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer wrote about Christopher McCandless, a nature lover in search for independence, in a mysterious and hopeful experience. Even though Krakauer tells us McCandless was going to die from the beginning, he still gave him a chance for survival. As a reader I wanted McCandless to survive. In Into the Wild, Krakauer gave McCandless a unique perspective. He was a smart and unique person that wanted to be completely free from society. Krakauer included comments from people that said McCandless was crazy, and his death was his own mistake. However, Krakauer is able to make him seem like a brave person. The connections between other hikers and himself helped in the explanation of McCandless’s rational actions. Krakauer is able to make McCandless look like a normal person, but unique from this generation. In order for Krakauer to make Christopher McCandless not look like a crazy person, but a special person, I will analyze the persuading style that Krakauer used in Into the Wild that made us believe McCandless was a regular young adult.
She then immediately follows up with a way to fix it and demand respect. Shes trying to connect with the audience and shows that she has been in the same place, that she can relate. You can see that she has done her research, she uses plenty of statistics to give you a visual of what she is talking about as well as quoting people from organizations and giving them the appropriate credit. She mentions in 2005 at yale, her alma mater, 15 students sat in the admissions office until they were removed by police. These individuals were demanding changes to the financial aid policy.
During the late 1800’s and early 1900’s the fight for equal and just treatment for both women and children was one of the most historically prominent movements in America. Courageous women everywhere fought, protested and petitioned with the hope that they would achieve equal rights and better treatment for all, especially children. One of these women is known as Florence Kelley. On July 22, 1905, Kelley made her mark on the nation when she delivered a speech before the National American Woman Suffrage Association, raising awareness of the cruel truth of the severity behind child labor through the use of repetition, imagery and oxymorons.
She gives the listeners personal advice she has learned and uses pathos in a more emotional way. Her allusion to the world trade center is a perfect example of this. She reminds us how we can easily overcome obstacles when we work together with other people. Later in the address Amy Poehler shares a few things she learned from when she studied improvisation in Chicago. She says, “Say ‘yes.’ Live in the moment. Make sure you play with people who have your back. Make big choices early and often. Don’t start a scene where two people are talking and jumping out of a plane. Start the scene having already jumped. If you are scared, look into your partner’s eyes. You’ll feel better”,. The way she relates the strategies she learned there back to life touches your heart. She closes her speech with a heartfelt message, “When you feel scared, hold someone’s hand and look into their eyes. And when you feel brave, do the same thing. You are all here because you are smart. And you are brave....As you head out into the world, I wish you love and light, joy, and much
The Letter from Birmingham Jail was written by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in April of 1963. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of several civil rights activists who were arrested in Birmingham Alabama, after protesting against racial injustices in Alabama. Dr. King wrote this letter in response to a statement titled A Call for Unity, which was published on Good Friday by eight of his fellow clergymen from Alabama. Dr. King uses his letter to eloquently refute the article. In the letter dr. king uses many vivid logos, ethos, and pathos to get his point across. Dr. King writes things in his letter that if any other person even dared to write the people would consider them crazy.
Pollan’s article provides a solid base to the conversation, defining what to do in order to eat healthy. Holding this concept of eating healthy, Joe Pinsker in “Why So Many Rich Kids Come to Enjoy the Taste of Healthier Foods” enters into the conversation and questions the connection of difference in families’ income and how healthy children eat (129-132). He argues that how much families earn largely affect how healthy children eat — income is one of the most important factors preventing people from eating healthy (129-132). In his article, Pinsker utilizes a study done by Caitlin Daniel to illustrate that level of income does affect children’s diet (130). In Daniel’s research, among 75 Boston-area parents, those rich families value children’s healthy diet more than food wasted when children refused to accept those healthier but
The story that impacted me the most was Mindy’s story about her diagnosis of schizophrenia. It was upsetting to learn about how one misdiagnosis can completely change a person’s life. France’s response to the misdiagnosis was insightful. He stated, “She taught me always to look for what’s fundamentally normal in people, not just what appears to be sick”(p. 247). I felt this quote was powerful because we often forget to treat people like human beings. Our culture tends to label people if they do not appear normal and that affects how a person values themselves. We should be conscious of the way we talk about individuals suffering with a diagnosis and treat them as a
The movie trailer “Rio 2”, shows a great deal of pathos, ethos, and logos. These rhetorical appeals are hidden throughout the movie trailer; however, they can be recognized if paying attention to the details and montage of the video. I am attracted to this type of movies due to the positive life messages and the innocent, but funny personifications from the characters; therefore, the following rhetorical analysis will give a brief explanation of the scenes, point out the characteristics of persuasive appeals and how people can be easily persuaded by using this technique, and my own interpretation of the message presented in the trailer.
Truth attempted to persuade the audience by giving examples from her past including having thirteen children, in which most were sold off to slavery. Imagine loosing just one child or loved one, the pain in unimaginable. Truth had near all of her children sold into slavery, she could never see or hear from again. Truth still had the mental and physical strength to continue believing and not breaking, eventually to escape from slavery. Telling her audience about her unimaginable situation and then standing right there in front of them delivering an amazing, heart felt speech was her way to help reach her audiences hearts and emotions to help
Jonathan Kozol revealed the early period’s situation of education in American schools in his article Savage Inequalities. It seems like during that period, the inequality existed everywhere and no one had the ability to change it; however, Kozol tried his best to turn around this situation and keep track of all he saw. In the article, he used rhetorical strategies effectively to describe what he saw in that situation, such as pathos, logos and ethos.
The speaker first grab her viewer’s attention by giving them questions and having self participation. Also, Amy uses humor to keep the audience focus on what is is talking about. She achieved this by her use of funny pictures and videos to break the ice for the viewers and to warm her crowd up. Cuddy also utilized technology in her speech. Her use of technology enhance her discussion by providing visuals to guide the audience in her topic. Together with the technology, Amy used an emotional personal story to keep the attention of the audience. This emotional story used the pathos side of a persuasive speech to use the audience emotion to keep them focus on the subject.
Human beings are assaulted on a daily basis. Some are attacked with bombs and guns while others may be attacked with harsh words and/or degrading tweets. Although these methods are on opposite ends of the spectrum, they both carry serious implications. This is evident by the attacks recently made on Comedy Central’s host of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert. This program has been a part of the Comedy Central network for over nine years. In this segment called “Who’s Attacking Me Now,” there is one main rhetorical device that is used to prove that the show had no need to be canceled.