Chris Moon
10/22/2017
JFK Inaugural Speech Questions
1. Many of the words are abstract because Kennedy is trying to allow the speech to send reach a broad audience. Words like freedom, poverty, or sacrifice are used to send a “call to action”, using a powerful and emotionally significant tone.
2. An example of personification is “those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.” This puts emphasis of the “tiger-like” dictators and tyrants at the time of the speech. The tiger aspect describes abuse of power.
3. A cliché metaphor that Kennedy uses “chains of poverty”. A fresher metaphor that he uses is “jungle of suspicion”. Kennedy uses these metaphors to create an image in the audience’s mind an put more emphasis on his statements.
4. Some words like “asunder”, “foe”, and words from the quoted bible seem archaic. Use of these words create a connection to traditional language and appeal to the older, or more conservative crowd at the time because Kennedy is considered a liberal young president.
5. Kennedy uses short paragraphs to allow the reader to digest his message with ease. Kennedy does this while still using rhetorical language.
6. Short sentences allow Kennedy to bluntly state either state a claim or a value. These appeal to the masses- people who may or may not be well informed.
7. Kennedy uses complex sentences to state his topic in his independent clause and add detail in his subordinate clause. In this way, combined with his slow speech, he...
