Preview

Michelle Obama Rhetorical Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
658 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Michelle Obama Rhetorical Analysis
It was a competitive election for Barack Obama and John McCain. This election would determine the fate of many lives during the economic downfall that the United States was facing. In 2008, Michelle Obama spoke at the Democratic Convention about her husband Barack Obama. The election was Barack Obama against John McCain. The well known woman wanted to bring attention to how her husband is a strong leader. She uses strategies like pathos through imagery, repetition, and language to persuade the American people to vote for her husband to become the next president of the United States. Michelle uses imagery to give the American people a visual about how they should listen to her. She describes this through the sentence, “It’s the story of men and women gathered in churches and union halls, in high school gyms, and people who stood up and marched and risked everything they had, refusing to settle, determined to mold our future into the shape of our ideals.” This line demonstrates a great deal of knowledge towards the presidency. Michelle is appealing to the American people who struggle with that everyday. This connects to her use of pathos through a crowd of people, standing in everyday places like: the high school gym, a church, or union halls. It’s targeted towards people she has witnessed, who …show more content…
She accomplished this through her use of pathos. The visuals she showed helped give the American people a better understanding about his capability. The country was also in a huge predicament and her use of language helped elaborate about her husband. She reinforced her stance with repetition to convince the voters that he is the best. Michelle Obama proved to be a wealth of knowledge while using her emotional appeal to persuade the voters. Her desire for Barack Obama to become president was strong, and using pathos to persuade was the key to her

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In 1997, Madeleine Albright, United States Secretary of State, presented a commencement speech to the attendees of a graduation ceremony at Mount Holyoke College. Albright presents her points through a political lens, uses repetition, and appeals to emotion to motivate the graduates of the women’s college, the next generation of women who can make an impact on society. Albright utilized American, political achievements in order to motivate the graduating class. In paragraph 6, Albright says that they have built a growing world economy and instead of stopping at that, they are pushing for broader prosperity. This sets this example to be a story of perseverance.…

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the beginning, Hillary Clinton starts her speech with achievement that women have been achieving which leads everyone to feel proud of today’s world’s women. However, she clearly highlights all the terrible things that women have to deal with, such as rape, burning, abortion, honor killings etc. One of the examples she gave was girls being abused and tortured because they are born as girls. “It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.” She painted the picture the way her audience would feel sympathy towards these women who have become victims of these kind of violence. The audience would realize that these women weren’t allowed to have…

    • 255 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    She speaks with clarity and conviction. She ensures that her message resonates with the audience on an intellectual and emotional level. Brown's use of humor and vulnerability adds depth and authenticity to her delivery, making her message more impactful and memorable. The speech is well-organized, Brown uses a clear preview statement and utilizes transitions to guide the audience through her…

    • 536 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Son, I can see clearly that you accompanied the mission, but ours just started. The President, the First and Second Lady, our loved ones in our administration, our families and most of our fellow Americans went through a lot for the past seven years to call the mission accomplished. If we can win wars like we did in the State of South Carolina, then our mission will continue until eternity. Elizabeth, Bernie and I were fighting to be your guest tonight. I am glad I won the coin toss. It's been a long time for you and I. I am agreeing with most of what you have been indicating. You know me well enough, if I don't I will inform you. In fact, I am loving it. Loving it also stands for the Second Lady. As you already know, I have spent decades in and out of the chamber trying to make this great nation of ours, the Land of Peaceful Fighters heaven on Earth.…

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Speaker’s use diction, syntax, and imagery to reflect their tone. In her final argument, Clinton says “After the world watched with horror as the twin towers fell, he called in to a New York TV station, and even on that horrible day when thousands of people lost their lives, he couldn’t stop himself from pointing out that now, because the towers had fallen, a building he owned was the tallest in Lower Manhattan.” Hillary Clinton's use of words like “horror” and “horrible” sets an apathetic tone. By setting this tone Clinton hopes to show voters how self-centered Donald Trump is. While Clinton strives to prove that Donald Trump was self-centered, Trump ventured to show that Hillary Clinton was crooked. Donald Trump first called Hillary Clinton…

    • 163 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hillary Clinton uses her emotional appeal (pathos) by trying to persuade her audience that she has a good heart and that she really does actually care about our country. Majority of that time that she spoke she used the word “We”. This make you feel as if everybody acts as one and that everyone is united together. “What kind of country “(we)” want to be”, “what kind of future “(we’ll)” build”, ““(we)” have to build an economy”, and ““(we)” need new jobs” were all things that came from out of Hillary’s mouth during this debate. She also tries to show her caring emotions by going on to say she knows the difficult choices that people have to face and the stress that it put people under. This gives the people that feeling of someone who understands…

    • 703 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Katniss Everdeen Thesis

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Her husband was elected president and from that point forward she has been an outstanding first lady. Her duties in her position require much more than what meets the eye. She has to be on her toes, alert, witty, a role model and many other things to be considered a successful first lady. Throughout the past 4 years seeing Michelle Obama work as the first lady has been a joy and watching her work harder and harder everyday has been inspirational. Michelle Obama and Katniss Everdeen share a courageous, inspirational spirit that light up the room they stand…

    • 561 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Kyle Bell obama

    • 611 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Secondly, President Obama uses an emotional appeal, known as pathos which connects with beliefs and feelings of the audience. He states “I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.” President Obama gains pathos by stating how he cannot disown…

    • 611 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Michelle Obama the wife of the U.S President Barack Obama. She is the first African American to become the first lady of the United States. The daughter of Fraser and Marian Robinson. Mother of two beautiful, intelligent young ladies Natasha, and Malia. She has only one sibling and that’s her brother Craig Robinson. Michelle has done so much over her life time with programs in the community, and in our nation. She is dedicated to help young people. So she started, and helped out with these programs: let’s move, joining forces, reach higher, and let girls learn. Michelle…

    • 1522 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Wong, Alex. Politics. Michelle Obama. The New York Times. 2 Jan 2012. Web. 19 Jan 2013.…

    • 954 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pathos Persuasive Speech

    • 1078 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Her speech starts off with specifics about her background: she comes from a family whose father was a “blue-collar city worker and a mother who stayed at home,” and she gives her audience a specific and strong picture about her father’s disease and how he had to struggle at every moment, but continued to work and support the family. Michelle’s father, “Never stopped smiling and laughing-- even while struggling to button his shirt, even while using two canes to get himself across the room to give [her] mom a kiss. He just woke up a little earlier and worked a little harder.” In this anecdote Michelle plays to the audience’s emotions by emphasizing her dad’s struggle through the repetition of the word “even.” This word highlights her dad’s love of and loyalty to his family despite his circumstances, and makes it clear to the audience that Michelle Obama’s childhood was not painless, as well as providing an opportunity for the audience to connect with her on a personal level. An initial personal connection, such as the one Michelle has made in her speech, creates an emotional foundation on which she is able to introduce her husband, Barack. The first time Michelle brings up Barack she is able to directly relate his family to the anecdote she shared with the audience about her family. Michelle conveys that, “His family was so much like [hers]… grandparents, single mom, working-class folks just like [her] parents.” In this passage Michelle creates an image of Obama’s family that is very similar to her own, and by associating Barack’s family to her family, Michelle effectively uses pathos by utilizing an already established emotional connection to create an emotional relationship between the audience and her husband, Barack. Furthering the success of Michelle’s use of pathos is the positive connotation of words such as “folks.” “Folks” is a word that portrays Michelle…

    • 1078 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A lot of American women grow up under the saying a woman’s work is never done and in turn feel that saying to be true. One woman, Author Jessica Grose, who wrote “cleaning: The Final Feminist Frontier”, which was published in 2013 in the New Republic, and in this article she argues that even though men in our lives have recently started to take on more of the responsibilities of child care and preparing meals somehow the cleaning is still left to the women of the house. She begins to build her credibility with reliably sources, personal information, statistics and citing facts. Towards the end of her article she loses her credibility and her argument when she attempted to appeal to the readers emotions.…

    • 991 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Clinton’s speech uses rhetoric by including elements of ethos, pathos, and logos modes of persuasion. Rhetoric is the art of an effective person. Ethos pertains to the credibility of the speaker. Clinton holds credibility because of her role as the First Lady. At the same time she is an influential activist for women’s rights. Pathos regards to a particular emotional response in the audience and the reader. Clinton evokes empathy from the audience as she relates issues facing woman all over the world. The passage uses the rhetorical device, Anaphora, which is the reputation of a word or a phrase at the beginning of a line. Clinton uses “It is a violation of human rights”. The list of these lead strongly to her pathos argument. Logos appeal to a strong connection in an argument. In her speech as a whole I feel her pain imaginatively throughout. She has made a huge impact with…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My paper is about how many people have their own opinions about what being an American is. To complete my research I looked at various articles and videos to really see what everyone thinks. The American voice to me is that we should be able to have freedom and we should have many opportunities to do what we want. In my opinion, I believe that Barack Obama is the best representation of America because he seems like he really cares about even the future of America. Being in American to me means that we have rights to be what we want to be. No other place has what America has, and that is life, liberty and equality.In my paper I will be talking about how different people view the way America, or what is to be American to…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    On Discourse Analysis, looking at a sample of spoken discourse from Michelle Obama’s Democratic National Conference Presentation.…

    • 4172 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays