In the 1960s the African Americans were freed, but did they really have all the rights they were promised? Racial conflicts were everywhere. Lyndon B. Johnson was current president and was trying to encourage congress to pass a bill called The Voting Rights Act. To influence the vote he gave the speech “We Shall Overcome.” In “We Shall Overcome” President Lyndon Johnson used ethos, pathos, logos, and other rhetorical devices such as allusions, repetition and appeals to authority to persuade congress to pass the act. Ethos is when one gives credibility. President Johnson has credibility in his speech when he claims, “Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the congress…” Mr. President also uses ethos when he states “...at the request of your beloved speaker, and the senator from Montana, the majority leader, the Senator from Illinois, the minority leader, Mr. McCulloch, and other members of both parties, I came here tonight…” These are example of ethos by giving credibility to everyone he mentioned. Aside from ethos there is pathos. Pathos is the passion in a speech or writing. President Johnson includes pathos in his speech by his use of diction and …show more content…
Johnson uses an infinite number rhetorical devices. He uses repetition, allusions, and appeals to authority, just to name a few. An example of repetition is “There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.” This is repetition by repeating there is no problem with these things and then that the only problem is this. An example of allusion is “But I cannot help believing that He truly understands and that He really favors the undertaking that we begin here tonight,” where “He” is an allusion to God. He also appeals to a higher authority when he said “God.” Another example of allusion would be “All men are created equal.” That is an example of allusion by referring to the Declaration of
Pathos is the appeal of the auhor to the emotions and the passions of the audience. The writing resource site reported that the language is used by the emotional appeal in a way that associated and authorized the audience sympathize with the writer. (http://figurativelanguage.net/.html) Throughout his autobiography, Frederick douglass portrayed his several experiences and make the audience feel the humiliation of being enslaved by another person. For instance, Douglass recounted his experience and feeling of watching his aunt being whipped by the master until she became totally covered with blood and described also the pleasure of the slavemaster seemed to take in it.
“What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his soul?”Lyndon B Johnson wrote American Promise to America and Congress to persuade them to pass voting rights. Lyndon B Johnson uses metaphors, parallel structure and anaphora to persuade his audience that all people should be equal. LBJ uses anaphora to show his point in equality and give prominence to the idea of all men are created equal. “There is no”(paragraph 12). This uses pathos to show that this is an American problem,not a negro, southern or northern problem.
As a matter of fact, many instances occurred where a word or phrase is used in repetition for emphasis. Johnson used phrases over and over to grab the attention of his crowd and to create precedence within the phrases. A repeated introduction to many sentences was “there is no”; this began the structure of the sentences where he’d address generalized groups of people. There is no southern problem and there is no northern problem were monumental statements in his speech; the crowd’s reaction was a turning point for the
In 1972, Shirley Chisholm stood before thousands of people and presented her presidential bid declaration speech. Chisholm uses all three of Aristotle’s persuasive appeals. Throughout Chisholm’s speech, she used logos, pathos and ethos. Logos is the appeal to logic in which reasoning and facts comes into play. Then pathos is the appeal to emotions in which she uses words to pull and the heart strings of her audience.
He successfully uses the three rhetorical appeals, allegory, and repetition to get his point across. His speech definitely shows the South it could be capable of amazing success, if the Whites and the African American realize they need each
In “Letter from Birmingham Jail” it can easily be argued that King used many rhetorical devices such as anaphora and tone in order to further persuade his audience to take action on behalf of the Civil Rights movement. Through copious examples, the reader is presented with King’s effort to use repetition in order to drive his point as well as being presented with the changing tone of his writing which allows the reader to experience a shift in emotions and urgency throughout the
John F. Kennedy uses literary devices to capture the attention of the audience, sets himself equal to his audience getting their attention and support, and uses the christian religion to strike the emotions and gain the support of his audience. Kennedy uses many literary devices to catch the attention of his audience. One of these devices is repetition. One example of repetition that Kennedy uses is, “Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us.
Lyndon Johnson used a rhetorical device in his tone to help deliver that racist voting rights are bad to the crowd. His voice
He does so specifically with examples that resonate with the audience. For instance, as he attempts to persuade listeners to consider revolting against the government, he uses a real-life example: All men recognize... the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution Of '75... when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole
Compared to the previous example of anaphora the effects are the same except for what the repetition brings attention to. Both examples put emphasis and focus on to the negative points Kennedy wants to direct to the Steel Industries. Kennedy’s diction also helps to keep the audience’s attention and focus on what he has to
Ethos means convincing by the author. We tend to believe people whom we respect and look up to as role models. Persuading someone with their role model to buy the product. It like a endorsement deal with celebrity. Nike uses the most ethos to draw the age groups together to sell the product by signing endorsement deals with athletes.
Jeannette Shackelford Duane Watson Engl 1302 02Febuary 2015 Press Hard For the Power to Vote In the speech “We Shall Overcome”, the speech was written by Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th president of the United States, the speech was addressed to Congress on voting legislation and to the United States as a whole. The speech was given on March 15, 1965 in an era where there was much bigotry, racial violence against blacks. The speech was televised a week after the after math of the deadly violence that had erupted in Salem Alabama, which was supposed to be a peaceful protest, that was given by the Negros a protest for equal rights to vote, turned into a violent protest.
Robert F. Kennedy uses repetition to show the crowd how we are all the same, to prevent people from reacting too much and starting riots. Throought his speech kennedy repeats the words hatred, black, white, love, difficult, and passion. By saying these words he is making the crowd focus on that part of the message he is sending with the speech,really getting through to the crowd.
During the era of the civil rights movements in the 60s, among the segregation, racism, and injustice against the blacks, Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the Lincoln Memorial to deliver one of the greatest public speeches for freedom in that decade. In Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech he effectively uses ethos, diction and powerful metaphors to express the brutality endured by African American people. Yet his most important method of reaching his audience, and conveying his enduring message of equality and freedom for the whole nation was his appeal to pathos. With these devices, King was able to move thousands of hearts and inspire the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Opening his speech Martin Luther King Jr. sets up his credibility with his use of ethos, referring to the Declaration of Independence saying, “This note was a promise that all men… would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life.”
By constntly bringing his argument back to the allusion of the Declaration, Lincoln becomes very persuasive to the American audience. Second, in Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech, Loudenslager analyzes the effective biblical allusion in this speech where Lincoln uses phrasing from a story about Jesus casting out demons. By relating his argument to a well known story for the time, Lincoln demonstrates a mastery in public persuasion. Finally, Loudenslager takes a look at Lincoln’s address at Cooper Union. Here, the key aspect of this speech is Lincoln’s ability to employ exhaustive research in order to back up his argument.