Examples Of Parallelism In Jfk Speech

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In President John F. Kennedy’s speech regarding the hike in steel prices (1962), Kennedy illustrates the crucial need for stable steel prices. By being sharp with his words, Kennedy uses parallelism, irony, and an empowering tone to convey this. As one would not want to go back to an economic recession such of that as the infamous Great Depression, Kennedy makes it clear in order to advance, the steel prices have to come to an equilibrium. Spoken to the news conference and different departments of government, Kennedy and his words are heard loudly through many aspects of speech. Through connecting the problem at hand to others, Kennedy’s argument is strengthened by parallelism. “When we are confronted with graves crises … when we are devoting our energies … when we are asking our Reservists …” (Kennedy 6-10). This use of repetition reveals to the listeners and readers the larger issues the country has faced in the recent past. Kennedy does this purposefully to show that while yes, the …show more content…

This empowering tone of his comes through in his other devices such as the parallelism in the early sections of his speech and through the upbringing of irony in the situation. This makes listeners and readers aware of how Kennedy himself feels of the current problem at hand, so they can connect to his passion and feelings, therefore making an appeal to pathos. When people listen to their hearts rather than their heads, they can make decisions they normally would not without facts. Kennedy has introduced both, he has shown the statistics confidently while still being able to connect to the lives of his people. The argument that steel prices should be kept stable can have many ends. While one can simply list the reasons why, Kennedy’s heart behind his impactful speech, made the reasoning that much more