The Kings Speech - Essay Example

The opening of the movie The King’s Speech immediately showed that the radio was the primary means to voice out one’s ideas and opinions, and more importantly, to unite and strengthen a nation.This essay argues that King George VI’s speech disorder was genuinely cured due to the effective techniques of Lionel Logue. The discussion will briefly show the struggle, and ultimately, the success of the King in overcoming his speech problem. The struggle of determination between therapist (Lionel Logue) and patient (King George VI) is carried out within an unconventional context: in the King’s room, in his own guidelines.

Lionel Logue was adamant to cure the speech problem of the King in his own means and Bertie, the King, should agree to his techniques or else abandon it. Obviously, the story would be very predictable or boring if Bertie simply accepted the proposal of Logue. Instead, there is social rift between these two major characters, the painful narrative of failure and the tempting possibility of recoiling to a peaceful domestic life. However, Bertie has no choice; he has to fully accept his responsibility as a King, which then obliges him to find a way to overcome his speech problem.

Eventually, the stage was set for the fight towards the success of two strong-minded individuals, and of a nation at war. The movie narrated how Bertie attained his goal of overcoming his speech problem give confident and clear speeches to his fellow people, allowing him to fulfill the task of mobilizing the British people at the beginning of the Second World War. Lionel Logue used several speech therapy techniques in the movie that are until now applied in the treatment of speech problems. Some of these techniques are pacing and masking methods and diaphragmatic breathing (Hutchinson 2010).

The movie also includes the mental and affective facets of stammering. Pacing and masking methods are merely a short-term solution for stuttering. The other technique called parroting or shadowing is when the therapist and the patient speak or read all at once (Hutchinson 2010). Noise, in the masking technique, is applied at a level of intensity sufficient to disable the capacity of the speaker to hear his or her own words. On the other hand, diaphragmatic breathing is the groundwork of numerous speech therapy courses.

Exercising this form of breathing can assist in relaxation and consequently in making speech fluent (Hutchinson 2010). These techniques are some of the most effective ones that Lionel Logue used to remedy the King’s speech problem. The movie, as aforementioned, also considered the psychological and emotional facets of stammering. It highlights the fact that stuttering does not stem from inadequate parenting. Rather, stuttering is brought about by a several overlapping factors, such as environmental and genetics.

Lionel Logue did not coerce Bertie into his own therapy. Rather, he patiently waited for Bertie to willingly embrace the therapy. Moreover, after concentrating on the speech’s motor features, the therapist only concentrated on the past of Bertie and how his speech problem worsens in the presence of his brother. Lionel strives to persuade and inspire Bertie to wholly embrace his speech problem to develop his fluency. This is a major component of speech therapies nowadays. Even though history is reworked a bit on behalf of an exceptional narrative, majority of what the audience witnessed in the movie is probably a precise depiction of Logue’