Rhetorical Analysis - Essay Example

This essay will judge Obama's speech according to the principles of rhetoric – ethos, pathos, logos and mythos – to show that a speech with no apparent political motive (motive as distinct from purpose) can still be worthy of rhetorical study. Ethos, the (usually introductory) part of speech which convinces the audience of the speaker's moral authority on the subject to be addressed, has been under debate for at least hundreds of years: the question is whether ethos can be established before the speech, if a speaker's moral character, if known to the audience, has some effect on the audience's reception to what they say (Hyde, ix).

The debate is purely academic, however, because Obama's position as President of the United States means that he will generally be accepted as an authority wherever he chooses to speak. At the time, his great interest in the reformation of healthcare and health insurance made his appearance in front of the ANA even more relevant. Obama's ethos is, as always, evident in three parts. Firstly, his casual announcement of somewhat specious facts – “it is an honor to speak to the ANA, representing more than three million registered nurses across the country” – present phronesis, as do his declaration of personal experience with nurses (which I will discuss under pathos).

However, this is jeopardized slightly by his obvious lack of specialized knowledge on nursing. Moral excellence, or arete, is mostly to be discerned from the President's work previous to this speech, but is also reinforced in the large middle section which discusses his recent achievements in the field of health insurance, in which the Democratic party and progressive Americans are portrayed as a force of good against the “abusive” insurance industry. Eunoia is a powerful force in this speech, as Obama begins with personally thanking a member of the audience and congratulating her mother on her daughter's achievements; he continues with a joke (“I don't break promises to nurses because you never know when I'm going to need a shot”), which was received with laughter by the audience.

He humanizes himself by talking about himself as fallible during the birth of one daughter and the serious childhood illness of another. The speech is peppered with individuals, and Obama's thanks for these people; the ending note is one of praise for the strong women and men who endure “tough … stressful … exhausting and … thankless” jobs to help sick people. The audience is very much brought over to Obama's side by his goodwill and even flattery. This brings me to the second aspect of rhetoric: pathos.

I see great evidence of pathos in Obama's speech – his appeals to emotion are frequent and often personal, as evident in many of his public appearances (Coop, 41). The video clip of the speech shows his great passion for less discrimination in healthcare, and his words contribute to this emotion. The stories of Obama's family – one daughter's birth and another's bout of meningitis as a three-month-old – are calculated to flatter every member of the union for being a nurse, not to thank the small number of nurses who attended to his family in times of need.

Obama refers to the nurses who