How Does Steve Jobs Address Rhetorical Analysis

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In his lively and agreeable speech at the Standford Graduation in 2005, Steve Jobs clearly emotionally persuades and establishes credibility to his audience through allusions and anecdotes by telling us that you can achieve anything, as long as you stay hungry and foolish and always love what you do. Steve Jobs portrays himself as an influential and successful speaker and begins his speech by stating his credibility. Jobs states, "the first story is about connecting the dots." and implies to the audience that you have to build trust with others and have trust in yourself to know that you will succeed. He also claims "I decided to drop out and trust that it will all work out OK." By stating his personal thoughts and reality, Jobs is able to let the audience know that he can relate to the audience and gain their trust from them. This shows us that no matter how much Steve Jobs has accomplished or how much money he has, he reminds us that everyone always comes from somewhere and that somewhere can be a life of struggle. To add his examples of allusion into the picture, Jobs uses his connection for an allusion to his life. He states that "Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future." and compares his past life to his …show more content…

He tells us short stories of his life that show his adversity in life. He lets us know this at the beginning of the speech when he says, "Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories." and he quickly gets into it. He adds anecdotes about "connecting the dots," "love," and, "death." and tells the audience about the things that changed him for the better in life. Jobs aims to strike a balance between happiness and sadness to let his message of following your dreams to really stick and be a speech you'll never forget