For this first blog post I will analyze first of all the presidential nomination speech of John McCain. If you wish to read a full transcript go to "http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/09/john_mccains_acceptance_speech.html"
With the presidential elections coming up in three weeks from this Sunday I thought it would be reasonable to choose to do an analysis on this candidates acceptance speech.
Through out his speech senator McCain uses mostly the rhetorical concept of Pathos. For example when he starts talking about his parents he makes use of pathos,
"When I was growing up, my father was often at sea, and the job of raising my brother, sister and me would fall to my mother alone. Roberta McCain gave us her love of life, her deep interest in the world, her strength, and her belief we are all meant to use our opportunities to make ourselves useful to our country. I wouldn't be here tonight but for the strength of her character."
He uses words such as love, deep interest, strength, and belief to create this effect. It seems like he is just telling us that his mom raised him but we also get the feeling of strength and compassion, sort of, when we hear of a hard working mother who raised three kids on her own.
If you can find more paragraphs or sentences that appeal to pathos feel free to post them up as a comment. As we look closer at McCain's speech we can see that he doesn't really want to rely on the facts that he is going to use. He has the crowd so overwhelmed with feeling that he doesn't need to, because he has the audience so stuck on feelings of victory and patriotism.
When it comes to John McCain explaining of what his plans are he makes them look like they are top of the line. He achieves this by making the other candidates, Senator Obama's, look like the antithesis. As we know antithesis is the extreme opposite. While he says he explains what he wants to do he says that Senator Obama wants to do the complete opposite.
9 comments:
Hello Edwin,
I have read your blog and is very interesting becasue you wrote about the president candidates. Becasue we as junior have been exposed to current events and lots of speeches written by McCain and Obama, everything you just mentioned struck back to me. I knew what you were talking about and as I was reading your blog I was thinking of all the work I still have to do in my humanities class. Don't think that your blog was boring, it just remind me of the workload I still have to undergo,
Nevertheless, I feel that becasue these presidential candidates for 2008 are very competitive, the usage in rhetoric in theri speech needs to be effectively done. We aren't wh is going to win, but what we are sure is that we will have a president in less than a week. Having everything said, I feel that rhetoric is very important in this kind of decisions becasue it will dictate our next president and future.
Hey Edwin,
You are so right in the way that McCain uses pathos to intrigue the reader into feeling sympathy for his mother since it seems that his mother was in charge of everything while his father was battling for this great nation we call The United States. Joel has point because this also reminded me of my humanities class since day in and day out we are studying speeches from presidents, endorsements, and other types of things that presidents have to deal with as well. As well as that every junior has to write speeches and somehow convince the reader or the listener.
In your life have you ever use pathos so you can engage somebody in a conversation or for them to sympathize with you? Well nice choice of speech and I hope that you target powerful speeches as the one you presented. I would like to ask you one more thing, by reading McCains speech did you feel pity for the hard work that McCain's mom had to endure? Good job and keep reading great speeches that can inspire anyone.
Edwinctio,
A blog well done! I enjoy reading your blog and seeing how you chose to writ about McCain maybe in the future you might want to go ahead and compare two speeches such as an old one and new but then again your doing recent so I dont know if that follows under your category but either way I liked what I read, and how you explained your source.
You might want to explain further more about more about the techniques McCain used but other then that it was a very well done blog kudos =]
Presidential speeches really are everywhere now to the point of where I'm sick of it.
One thing I admire about your blog is how you maintain a nuetral tone about McCain's speech. I know that when I read his speeches, I have a hard time trying to call out his hypocracy or self-contradictions.
McCain really does call out Obama a lot in his speeches, which would be fine for one or two, but I think every speech of his I've read so far have mention Obama and how 'bad' he is. McCain's usage of anti-thesis is a bit too much. I think that he could make his speeches so much better by using other kinds of rhetoric or figurative language.
Dear Edwin,
I do agree speech makers such as the candidates tend to use the appeals of ethos, pathos and logos to persuade their audience. One of the appeals they use is pathos because they speak of their one personal life to make the audince see that they went through situations that many of us go through everyday. To me this brings a great affect among the people because we support and each individual has a side. I wonder who will be our next president ehat do you think?
Dear Edwin,
I find your blog interesting because like Joel and Vincent said, we had been studying about speeches and i noticed that they mostly use pathos in their speeches to appeal to the audience's feelings. We have heard lots of speeches from John McCain and from Barack Obama. These speeches interests me because they uses a lot of pathos and i am interested to see more examples about it so that i would have an idea on how i could put it to my own writing.Anyways, I think you did a good job in your blog and hopefully u could put one of Obama's speech. =)
Hi Edwin,
DID YOU GET THIS FROM HIS NOMINATION ACCEPTANCE SPEECH?! Have you realized how whenever elections come about, teachers take this as an "extra little something" to teach?
Well anyways, my thoughts on you blog: I am happy you used something that i am familiar with. It really helps.
I agree with labeling this as pathos. This is a perfect example. What are your thoughts on the usage of pathos in the presidential speeches? In my opinion, its kind of a "low- blow", i think that its an excuse to make us pity them and feel sorry, but then again it can also be seen as a source or strength.
I enjoyed your blog.
-Diana
Edwin,
As I read your blog I did come to realize how much not only McCain uses pathos, but how also everyone who is running for election does too. For example, in one of his speeches President-Elect Obama spoke about his grandmother and used negatively connotated words to emphasize that he too has gone through the pain and hardships that we all have gone through. I think your blog is very interesting because it made me realize something that I hadn't before. I think we all know what speech might be a good one to choose in a couple of months, Obama's Acceptance Speech to Presidency. lol
Edwin,
what about Barack Obama's speech? he also uses pathos in his speech. i found a passage in McCain's speech that might be related to pathos:
"When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house. A Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I rarely saw my father again for four years. My grandfather came home from that same war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day. In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home with me. I hate war. It is terrible beyond imagination."
This passage also uses pathos.
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