On July 27th 2004, Barack Obama delivered a speech that motivated America to make a change. He spoke with such passion and emotion to the crowd that he had them strung on every word that came out of his mouth. “The Audacity of Hope” is one of the speeches that is going to go down in history for years to come. Obama used many rhetorical devices such as repetition, questions, emotive language, and the use of pronouns that helped get his point across, while at the same time compelling the audience. He used ethos to help his audience to get a feel for who he was as a person, he used logos to help back up what he is saying with facts, and he used pathos to reach his viewers emotions. He managed to do all of this and give an amazing speech that helped …show more content…
In order to get people to help and grasp how deep this problem is, they need to get emotionally involved. “More to do for the father that I met who was losing his job and choking back the tears, wondering how he would pay 4500 dollars a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits that he counted on”(Michael E. Eidenmuller). This struck many families because a lot of people are going through this same problem. Not everyone is wealthy enough to get amazing medical care for their illnesses. It is a very common problems many Americans face, and mentioning it made the audience feel disappointment at how their government has failed them. Along with pathos comes emotive language. “Eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white”(Michael E. Eidenmuller). Racism is a common problem we face in America. People let the color of skin determine how a person is, not what is on the inside. Saying that a black child is acting white for reading is a slap in the face because there are people out there with this way of thinking. The emotion that really hit the audience is when Obama asked “Are we serving Shamus as well as he is serving us?”(Michael E. Eidenmuller). Shamus is a young man who joined the Marines. He had an enormous amount of faith in this country that he devoted his life for it. Obama asks the audience this question to make them think, are they paying back Shamus for risking his life to protect this