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Rhetorical Analysis Of Jfk Speech

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During the 1960s the United States (U.S.) was facing many problems. At that time the U.S. was recovering from a recession, there were problems with civil rights, and tensions were rising because of the Cold War with Russia and Cuba. On April 10, 1962, large steel companies raised the price of steel by 3.5 percent. On April 11, 1962, President John F. Kennedy held a press conference about the steel companies’ recent changes. In “JFK’s Speech,” John F. Kennedy used changing tone, word choice, and repetition to get the American people at that time to rally together to tell steel companies to stop raising steel prices to six dollars a ton. In Kennedy’s speech he used changing tone to express his anger towards the large steel companies. When Kennedy …show more content…

“The facts of the matter are that there is no justification for an increase in the steel prices” (31). “Justification” is a powerful word, Kennedy could have used many other words, yet he used “justification”. When he used “justification” in the sentence, it means that there is absolutely no explanation for the price increase. He also included the phrase “facts of the matter,” when he could have used any other phrase. “Facts of the matter” means that it’s the truth and Kennedy used it to his advantage to help argue his statement about steel companies raising prices on steel. “A few gigantic corporations have decided to increase prices in ruthless disregard of their public responsibilities” (50-51). He used the word “ruthless” to describe corporations as showing no sympathy towards their public duties as corporations. He then used disregard right after the word “ruthless”, meaning companies do not care about others at all. He also used the word gigantic, to describe the scale of these steel companies and to describe how big of an impact each companies has in the U.S. economy. Kennedy used all three words together to voice his anger to every steel company that raised its prices and denied workers’ wage request. Kennedy used word choice to tell the American people at that time how he felt about what the steel companies did. He knew that if he expressed his emotions, the American people would mimic and would agree with what he said. Eventually he wanted the American people to come together and demand change from large steel companies after they raised its prices to six dollars a ton and denied workers’ wage

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