Rhetorical Analysis Of Mary Fisher's Speech

Delivered on August 19th, 1992 at the Republican National Convention in Houston, Texas, Mary Fisher gave a speech about the negative stigma surrounding the topic of HIV and Aids. This speech was made at a time where AIDS was still an extremely taboo topic, and it was delivered shortly after her own HIV diagnosis. Fisher’s main purpose in her speech was to convince the crowd at the convention that anyone is susceptible to disease and that is why she urges, “the Republican Party to lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue.” Mary Fisher opens the speech by recognizing her own personal fight with HIV, and then uses statistics to show the audience that HIV/AIDS is “an epidemic which is winning.” She moves on to the real purpose of her speech …show more content…
Fisher then recognizes President George H. W. Bush, the president at the time, who was a republican, and the support him and his wife have not only given her family, but the AIDS community too. She then uses a personal anecdote of her father and from that draws an allusion to the Holocaust as she quotes Pastor Nemollar’s quote upon coming out of an internment camp saying that he believed for so long that he was safe, but finally the Nazi’s came after him. She compares this to the Aids epidemic warning that “no place left in America is safe.” She ends the speech on an emotional note as she thanks her family for the support they have given her and the addresses each of her children by name, calling them future orphans, because both her and her husband will die of the disease. She then promises her children that she will not rest until she has done all she can to bring awareness to the AIDS