On January 20th 1961, John F. Kennedy delivered a speech to the citizens and peoples of both America and the world. After the end of a close and competitive election, he used this speech not to celebrate his victory as president, but to unite the audience. He addresses the audience with a speech that would be remembered for years to come, as a powerful and uniting plead to a nation that was faced with fear. Kennedy details “a new generation of Americans” by contrasting the old and the new with antithesis. He states that his election “symbolizes an end as well as a beginning” and “signifies renewal as well as change”. This use of antithesis bridges the gap between the younger generation of Americans and the older generation. He unites them under one goal and one purpose in a time in which America needs to be united due to the mist of the cold war. Kennedy uses the fear of Americans, due to the cold war, to persuade his audience to have trust in him. He says “For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.” Through this he implies that us as Americans have the power to destroy …show more content…
He describes the “power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life” that humanity now holds, and proceeds to describe how he plans to use that power to help the free peoples of the world. This illustration adds some excitement to the speech, while including a foundation from which he will build other ideas later in the speech. Kennedy use parallelism by repeating “let us…” in the fourteenth to the eighteenth paragraph. This parallelism connects the statements forming a sort of climactic stair that his speech climbs, growing in implication and growing in excitement with each step. This keeps the reader interestingly engaged in the speech, and it ties together Kennedy’s ideas, helping the audience to