President Ronald Reagan and his, “Evil Empire Speech,” from March 8th of 1983 is full of rhetorical strategies. Ronald Reagan’s speech was based on his belief that religion was important in the American life as well as government. He provided his opinions on topics such as abortions and the fight against parental notification. At the end of his speech he focuses on prolonging peace with the Soviet Union but also says that the Soviet Union must be made to understand: “We will never compromise our principles and standards. We will never give away our freedom.” In Reagan’s efforts to show his intended purpose throughout his speech, he uses a rhetorical strategy known as sarcasm at the start of his speech. “You have to understand how things are up here. We’ve got thousands and thousands of clergy. You’re the first politician who ever made it.” He begins with sarcasm in order to loosen up his crowd and then build up to the more serious issues. Reagan then proceeds with the use of a simile, “Yes let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.” The use of this rhetorical device is to provide his audience with a stronger, more vivid comparison of justice and righteousness. Throughout his speech, Reagan refers to and quotes a lot from the bible, which leads to the next rhetorical device in his speech; assonance. Assonance is found in Reagan’s speech when he says, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Once again, emphasizing his purpose on the importance of religion in American life. The next speech is Jimmy Carter’s, “Crisis of Confidence.” In his speech, Jimmy Carter not only tells his audience what he will do about the energy shortage problem, but he speaks about the “crisis of confidence” in the American government, values and way of life. In his speech, the first rhetorical concept found was personification. “When we import oil we are also importing inflation plus unemployment.” This quote came from a citizen that had participated in Carter’s Camp David. Carter uses quotes such as these to emphasize his purpose on lack of confidence in the American people. Following Jimmy Carter’s statements by the people at Camp David, one of the vivid statements contained a hyperbole. “Our neck is stretched over the fence and the OPEC has a knife.” With this statement, Carter uses the hyperbole as an exaggeration of the circumstances. A rhetorical strategy that Jimmy Carter uses more than once is anaphora. Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of a successive phrase, clause, or line. In different occasions Carter uses anaphora by repeating phrases such as, “It is a crisis,” “Confidence,” and “We are.” Jimmy Carter later on in his speech, uses a simile to express how Washington is a system that …show more content…
This brief and short chapter provides a few rhetorical strategies, beginning with irony. “I want you to feel what I felt. I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth,” and later at the end of the chapter, “"Daddy, tell the truth," Kathleen can say, "did you ever kill anybody?" And I can say, honestly, "Of course not." Or I can say, honestly, "Yes." The author uses irony to confuse the reader and make them question what is the author’s real meaning. The final strategy used in the short chapter is anaphora. O’Brien uses the repetition of the word “I can” to explain how stories can make things present making him go back to that time in his