Rhetorical Analysis Of Graduation Speech By Neil Gaiman

In his keynote address to the graduating class of The University of the Arts, Neil Gaiman uses his knowledge that he has accumulated from his successful career in the arts to give advice to the graduating class of 2012. Through his use of metaphorical comparisons, his carefree and honest delivery, and organization of his speech, Gaiman effectively conveys his message to the students that they are going to hit a few bumps in the road, but if they keep up their hard work, their successes will surpass their failures. Gaimans’ main point throughout this speech is that these students can never give up; they just have to keep pushing and pushing to really prosper in their dreams.
To begin, Gaiman makes several comparisons between hardships and a career in the arts field. He claims that he would imagine "that where [he] wanted to be--an author, primarily of fiction, making good books, good comics and supporting [himself] through [his] words--was a...distant mountain (3:43)". By saying this, he puts into perspective for the students that it is going to be tough and they are going to have a long road a head off them, but essentially they will reach their goal at their “distant mountain”. Gaiman …show more content…
Gaiman easily summarizes his speech into seven main points that makes it easy for the audience to follow along, step by step of what he is saying. Gaiman chose to list his pieces of advice in chronological order; starting with “when you start out on a career in the arts you have no idea what you are doing (1:50)”, and ending with his favorite piece of advice that Stephen King gave to him, “you should enjoy it (15:46)”. Gradually, Gaiman briefly explained what each topic meant to him, and even connected a personal story so that the audience was able to tell that he really did know what he was talking