Rhetorical Analysis Of J. K. Rowling's Speech

In her 2008 commencement speech at Harvard University, J.K. Rowling, the bestselling author of the Harry Potter series, delivered a powerful and persuasive message to the graduating class. The strategies that Rowling (2008) used to engage her audience and deliver her message effectively, such as pathos, ethos, and logos, will be examined in this text. Through personal anecdotes, humor, and persuasive language, the author encouraged her audience to embrace failure and imagination as powerful tools for personal growth and success. By analyzing the techniques and devices that Rowling (2008) employed in her speech, readers can gain a deeper understanding of how she created a persuasive and memorable message for her audience.
Throughout her speech,

Her willingness to share personal details about her life enhances her ethos by allowing the audience to connect with her on a deeper level. Additionally, by acknowledging her failures, Rowling (2008) is able to frame failure as a necessary and natural part of the journey to success, rather than something to be ashamed of. This approach not only inspires empathy but also encourages the audience to reevaluate their own attitudes toward failure. Overall, Rowling's words on failure serve as a powerful reminder that success is not achieved without setbacks and hardships and that it is possible to find growth and strength in the face of failure.
Rowling (2008) uses irony as a rhetorical device in pathos to illustrate the difference between her parents' beliefs and her reality. She states, “my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension” (Rowling, 2008, para. 9). By referring to her successful career as a writer, she highlights the irony of her parents’ beliefs. This device helps her to convey her message that imagination is a valuable asset that should be

She notes that achievable goals are the first step to self-improvement, and failure removes the inessential and allows us to focus on what matters to us, she states “[I] began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me” (Rowling, 2008, para. 19). She argues that failure allows us to gain knowledge and experience from adversity, “knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.” (Rowling, 2008, para. 22). She also argues that “imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation […] it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared” (Rowling, 2008, para 24), and empathy and that Harvard graduates have a unique responsibility to use their status and influence to imagine themselves in the lives of those who do not have a voice. She supports her claims with personal anecdotes of her experiences working at Amnesty International's African research department, stating that there she “learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than [she] had ever known before” (Rowling, 2008, para.