Rhetorical Analysis Of Jfk Inaugural Address

In a time where many countries of the world were unsettled and feared another atomic bomb explosion, President John F. Kennedy was sworn into office on January 20, 1961 on a cold winter afternoon. He then proceeded to give an inaugural address that would last through the ages and inspire people not only in America, but also people around the world to unite together and achieve peace. His speech was eloquent and smooth, because of his use of many rhetorical strategies. He uses diction, appeals, parallelism and other literary devices all throughout the speech. President Kennedy wise use of diction greatly helped him appeal to the audiences. In the beginning of the speech he says “We observe today not a victory of party…” . He uses the term

He first uses antimetabole when he says, “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But never let us fear to negotiate.” This is to reiterate the opposites and parallelism for impact, but here he also uses assonance in “never negotiate” to emphasize his point. He follows this up with an anaphora of “Let both sides…” to express his goals for the two sides, that are America and the Communist, and what they could achieve if only they come together. His audience is then encouraged by his hopeful tone, and further persuades them to unite together with him. Possibly the most known example of antimetabole is “..ask not what your country can do for you, but for what you can do for your country,”. Kennedy here stresses with the utmost finality what the citizens could do if they could unite together with him, and further inspires them to help by asking for a change in their actions. He takes his statement to the world even, saying, “...ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedoms of man,” He called upon not only the citizens of America, but also called upon from people around the world to come and strive for a world of peace, and it will only be possible if they all