Rhetorical Analysis Of Jfk Speech

Since its creation, the United States has strived to look for opportunities to make itself known as a world leader. One of these opportunities came in the form of obtaining the title of being the first country to land a man on the moon. On September 12, 1962, more than eighteen months into his presidency, President John F. Kennedy, ascended the podium at Rice University to address the crowd that gathered there. In the wake of the Soviet Union being the first country to get a man in space, the United States felt the pressure to come back with some sort of space accomplishment to rival that of the Soviet Union’s. President Kennedy was feeling this pressure to make a name for the United States in space exploration when he took to the podium. In

In his speech, he states, “We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people.” In this case, he uses “sea” to symbolize discovery and adventure. Sea exploration is a great example of discovery. When the Americas were first founded, and the United States was colonized, sea exploration was the cause. The creation and beginnings of the United States rested on the sea explorations of countries in Europe. When Kennedy gave his speech, he was not planning on literally setting sail on a “new sea”; however, he was planning on figuratively discovering the sea that is space. By using symbolism, the audience feels the message that Kennedy is trying to convey without him just telling them directly. This helps the audience connect the discovery of space to the world’s past. The audience sees the comparison of oceans or seas as a channel that discovery courses through. Kennedy’s use of the ocean as a symbol for discovery helped the audience think about the possibilities that come with space

Looking at the compacted version of human history, Kennedy says, “. . . we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them . . . Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.” Kennedy’s motive in doing this is to show the audience how much civilization have accomplished in recent years. This comparison displays how human history developed very slowly at first. As time went on, advancement among the human race started to come more rapidly. The audience is swayed to believe that this advancement should be exponential, meaning that it should always be increasing and never flattening out to a steady rate. Looking back at the course of human history, one can see how far it has come. The audience can feel the excitement of what man is capable when Kennedy references to the progress and invention that have occurred since the beginning of man. Space exploration is all about embracing the possibilities that the unknown presents, and Kennedy needed to make his audience feel open to these possibilities. By comparing the course of human history to