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Analyzing Conan O Brein's Commencement Speech

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Commencement speeches are always a great place to find persuasive strategies; a great example is Conan O’Brein’s commencement speech at Dartmouth College in the year 2011. Conan is able to use comedy as a way to portray his thoughts and give a powerful speech about the trials and conflicts of life. O'Brien uses a plethora of literary devices to help the graduates better understand his primary points in the speech. Conan O'Brien effectively uses ethos, pathos, and repetition to convey to the graduating class of Dartmouth College that change is inevitable and that how people are able to embrace change is what makes humans grow as a society. Conan’s main focus of this speech was to keep it light and breezy to allow the audience to connect better …show more content…

Another prominent literary device used throughout the speech is ethos. O’Brien himself is a famous comedian and he understands that, so he effectively uses ethos to establish his credibility and keep the audience engaged. A great example of this is “Before I begin, I must point out that behind me sits a highly admired President of the United States and decorated war hero while I, a cable television talk show host, have been chosen to stand here and impart wisdom. I pray I never witness a more damning example of what is wrong with America today.” O’Brien stated. Here Conan establishes his credibility by using comedy to explain how Dartmouth chose him to speak while the president of the United States of America is sitting right behind him. He uses comedy to portray that something is wrong with America for choosing him over the president, but it effectively establishes his credibility as a comedian to open the speech with a joke and show the audience that he himself knows what he is talking about. O'Brien is a very successful late-night talk show host and comedian, he expresses this in the quote above and uses ethos to portray this. O’Brien also again uses comedy to establish credibility and keep the speech lighthearted and laid-back giving the audience the chance to connect and stay

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