Reagan's Speech Analysis

Decent Essays
Freedom is the power or right to act. In East Berlin by building this wall you are taking away the people’s freedom or right to act. In Reagan’s speech he states “Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.” Reagan says this with such a ferocity in his voice that everyone in the audience, or anyone who reads this speech now can not help but to believe what he is saying. You can infer in Frost text that if the physical wall comes down then the narrator’s internal wall will come down with it, thus giving him freedom.

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    During his first term, Reagan vigorously pursued an anticommunist foreign-policy agenda. He announced a five-year program to increase defense spending by $1.2 trillion. In March 1983, he proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, or "Star Wars"), which was intended to protect the United States against a Soviet strategic-missile attack. Calling the Soviet Union "the evil empire," he employed anti-Soviet rhetoric that was more reminiscent of the 1950s. He also enunciated a policy that was subsequently dubbed the "Reagan doctrine," promising American help for friendly nations threatened by communist rebels and for revolt movements seeking to topple Marxist regimes.…

    • 163 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    What could have been the purpose of a Ronald W. Reagan’s speech after a catastrophic incident? On January 28, 1986, a space shuttle launched from NASA suffered a casualty when the shuttle named The Challenger was on the air, as it broke apart. This launching was showcased on national television, causing the crew’s children witness their parents’ death, and most children in the U.S. being traumatized by it. As a way of unifying the nation after a tragedy of that essence, President Ronald W. Reagan gave a speech memorizing the seven lost members of the crew and used emotion to comfort the citizens.…

    • 423 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Ronald Reagan’s, A Time for Choosing Speech, main points are as follows: did we still retain the knowledge of the definition of freedom according to our Founding Fathers? “It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers” (Reagan 1). Did we still define government on those founding beliefs? A people that could be self-governed or would we continue to redefine our definition of government until it was completely transformed into totalitarianism. Reagan believed there was no right or left to decide between; he believed there was only a government and people evolving or decaying.…

    • 610 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Reagan strengthens this connection between freedom being a sacred idea that God supports fully. Reagan makes the audience feel as if taking back freedom for these people would be a holy task, thus increasing Evangelical interest in involvement in the Cold…

    • 1894 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the speech by John H. Reagan, he believes that “the real cause of the war was sectional jealousy, the greed of gain, and the lust of political power by the Eastern States” (Why the south seceded, 2). According to John H. Reagan, it was sectional jealousy and lust of power which started to build up in Eastern peoples heart when the Louisiana territory was purchased in 1803. The people of New England did not like the purchase because they thought that it gave more power to the agricultural states and it opposed interests for manufacturing states. The Eastern states wanted to control the policy of the federal government to promote individual and sectional interests “in their opposition to this measure they threatened to secede from the Union” (why the south seceded, 2).…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Margaret Thatcher, in her eulogy about President Ronald Reagan, implies that Reagan transformed the world as president. Thatcher supports her implication by describing how Ronald Reagan “won the Cold War” non-violently and by illustrating how he “resisted Soviet expansion… until the day came when communism began to collapse” (Thatcher). Her purpose is to make her readers aware of her relationship with President Reagan in order to help them appreciate his political decisions and mourn his unfortunate death. She establishes a reflective tone with her audience of anti-communist Americans.…

    • 88 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Ronald Reagan begins his historical speech with - ironically - a history, mentioning how he is continuing a presidential tradition of speaking in beautiful Berlin. Very quickly he mentions his motivation for speaking: freedom. To the citizens of Eastern Europe, he gives a special message saying that the city of Berlin should not be divided. The Berlin Wall behind Ronald Reagan at the time of his speech is a glaring symbol of the lack of freedom in Berlin. He goes on to explain that forty years prior, the Marshall Plan was put into place as an action against “hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos”(Reagan).…

    • 1658 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s vision of Government’s job encompassed an expansion of government authority in all forms of existence. His inaugural address to Americans in 1933 was one of hope and a call to action to alleviate the dire results of the depression and advance the country into a quick mode of recovery. He felt the need was honest communication regarding the present state of affairs and enlistment of all Americans with Federal Government leadership to correct these problems. After Roosevelt’s inauguration, he put his words into immediate action.…

    • 237 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    And then, in an all-encompassing, evocative quote, he states, “Yes, across Europe, this wall will fall, for it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.” Although one might believe that this would have been the ideal moment to end the speech, Reagan chooses instead to address the demonstrations against his coming and brings his argument to a close by saying, “And I would like to say just one thing, and to those who demonstrate so. I wonder if they have ever asked themselves that if they should have the kind of government they apparently seek, no one would ever be able to do what they’re doing again.” This leaves an open ending that is sure to provoke his audience to contemplation and allows for the speech to…

    • 1440 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On October 13, 1982, two years after his election to the presidency, Ronald Reagan said in a televised speech, “…unemployment is the problem uppermost on many people’s minds….but, remember, you can’t solve unemployment without solving the things that caused it, the out-of-control government spending, the skyrocketing inflation and interest rates that led to unemployment in the first place.” (Reagan). By blaming the government for America’s economic woes, Reagan reinforced the conservative agenda that he had espoused for the better part of forty years. These same right-wing ideals propelled Reagan to victory in the presidential election of 1980, where he won a landslide victory over incumbent president Jimmy Carter. While the political leanings of a nation are often fluid, Reagan’s 489-49 sweep of the…

    • 1271 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bush’s speech comforted the devastated nation by telling us acts of heroism and by telling us that we were going to get the men who did it. He wanted to comfort the nation because we were all affected by the tragedy of September 11th. He knew that we were confused about who did this and why anyone would ever do this. He comforted us by saying that the world was with us, supporting us and that we would never forget our nation’s national anthem playing at places such as Buckingham Palace, the streets of Paris and Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate. Knowing that the world’s prayers and support was with us reminded us that the entire world felt for us in the face of this tragedy.…

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Freedom is the power to express yourself without being restricted. Our society has an erroneous definition of freedom, since we are not free. As citizens we are tight to certain laws that control the way we act. Frederick Douglass once acknowledged that knowledge is valuable because it is the key to freedom.…

    • 391 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Freedom is helping others when it is needed. Helping when not only our allies but others who have troubled times. If we can not help many people that are poor then why bother helping a few of the rich. Being free is helping those who need it poor or rich, enemy or allie. Both Kennedy and Roosevelt have a very good way of viewing what freedom means to…

    • 980 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Freedom for All On June 12th, 1987 United States President Ronald Reagan gave his famous “Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate” speech at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin. At this time, the United States and the USSR were embroiled in a global power struggle, which resulted in a great deal of tension between democratic and communist countries. Many people at the time sought reunification of West Berlin and East Berlin, and an end to the Cold War. In “Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate,” former president Ronald Reagan uses logos appeals, pathos appeals, and parallel structure in an effort to initiate the demolition of the Berlin Wall, and usher in freedom to communist countries.…

    • 1179 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He believed that applying these concepts would provide readers with a better understanding behind the motives of the speaker. Throughout Reagan’s address, it is clear that he aims to achieve his goal through identification. By using his goal of identification, he would highlight target objectives that he wanted America to focus on. First, the dramatistic pentad approach must be set so readers can discover the root of Reagan’s ultimate goals.…

    • 1135 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays