How to Live Before Dead - Assignment Example

“Rhetorical Analysis of "How to Live Before Dead"" The inspirational words spoken by Jobs still have greater effects on various business leaders and people around the world especially his ability to link his message and the intended audience. In the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios he said, “Youve got to find what you love”. Steve Jobs delivered the message on June 12, 2005, he, as an elder and achiever, strives to give his audience who graduate from Stanford University some wisdoms and inspirations. In his speech, Jobs tells three stories from his life to encourage his audience unhurriedly face to their life and tenaciously pursue their love. These three stories are about “connecting the dots”, “love and lost” and “death”. Steve Jobs establishes his credibility, influence, and sometimes combines multiple rhetorical strategies to affect his audience to accept these enlightenments of life. To entirely understand goal of Steve Jobs in creating his argument on speech, the anticipated audience, apparent purpose and context ought to be initially analyzed. This presentation is at Stanford University as commencement. The audiences include top brains from the finest universities in the world. Steve Jobs advices and enlightens the graduates who are about to face life. In context, being an achiever, he imperceptibly uses his own life stories to convince his audience because the stories are reality. Steve Jobs’ humble beginning and the fact that he never graduated indicates that he has a lower starting point than these graduates thus confirming the reality of his stories. Steve Jobs presents his opinion and history as evidence that creates rhetorical backing in ethos. Steve Jobs, just like any other prominent speaker uses emotional anecdotes to represent their own personality and history. He begins his life story with his unwed graduate mother who puts him up for adoption and other clearly disadvantaged background as a poor child (Jobs Web). Steve Jobs, just like any other prominent speaker uses emotional anecdotes to represent their own personality and history. Presentation of his past connects well with his audience because they are able to relate his past and success. Job creates an environment that enables the audience understand that despite harsh historical encounters, it is still possible to excel. He also explains about a company he started that later grew into a big company and this reminds the grads that even them they can start off things humbly and be successful. Steve Jobs success in Apple speaks for itself. His achievements make him trusted by his audience. He explains to his audience the far he has come from and all the things that made him what he is. He also explains about a company he started that later grew into a big company and this reminds the grads that even them they can start off things humbly and be successful. This rhetorical strategy is very important because individuals develop trust in him and in his speech. The audiences who are young people ready to face the world and would perhaps want people they can look up to as a role model finds Steve Jobs as a perfect role model. They tend to believe in him much better because they are aware of his success. Apart from the ethos aspect, Steve Jobs’ speech emotionally connects with his audience. He tells a story concerning his battle with cancer and this works well in convincing his audience who can relate with cancer. The cancer issue brings emotion into picture and enhances a good connection with his audience. It makes him prove the point that time is precious and death can actually take place anytime and further let the audience understand where he comes from (Jobs Web). Steve uses his life experiences to play upon his rhetorical strategies. In his address, he uses love and loss as universal emotions common to all humans to attract the audience attention and make the speech connect with the graduates emotionally. He tells audience to utilize their intuition and follow their hearts to become happy. The emotional connection Steve uses makes the audiences believe in the reality and honesty of Steve Jobs’ speech. It makes the audience feel attached to him thus increasing their ability to acknowledge the significant speech. Besides using emotional connection Steve Jobs uses repetition to emphasize on the fact that following one’s passion leads to greater success. Steve Jobs reminds the students that even the most unfortunate and poor students can achieve success in their lives if they follow their passion. Steve Jobs reminds the audience that they can reach greater heights if they follow their dreams just like him. He digs deep into his intimate lifestyle issues and uses pathos to tap into the grads’ feelings of sympathy. Steve Jobs proves a strong man with ability to conquer challenges and his three stories make him an example of hard work as a precursor to success (Jobs Web). Steve Jobs successfully tells three different stories representing three different rhetorical strategies to make his speech better, inspiring, and more believable to his audience. He makes the students believe that success is just within their reach and the insight offers a stronger connection for the grads. Jobs’ speech shows his audience that outlook on life is simple and that is what entails success (Web). While proving the capability of starting from a small beginning, he nicely organizes his speech to sound connective and rhetorical. The structure of Jobs’ speech sounds connective and rhetorical because he sets it high topically by including three stories thus enabling him make his point and connect his arguments in an organized manner. Jobs did not just spill his points in random times and moments but organized them in a systematic manner making him to connect issues to an overall point of finding. Steve Jobs’ creation of language structure relates with the three stories and three varying messages including connecting the dot, love and loss and death (Web). His ability to connect the three stories with the intended messages enables his audience to follow them easily. Steve establishes his arguments with rhetorical backing and his speech is only supported through opinionated and personal experiences. Besides simplicity and word structuring, Jobs applies frankness and honesty in his speech such as the comment he makes when talking about death. While introducing the speech, he admits that, “I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest Ive ever gotten to a college graduation”. He says that “Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it” (Web). Jobs informs the students that the truth of the matter is that they will all die and therefore they need to utilize the time they have to ensure that they follow their passion and desires. He tells the students that they should not live with regrets by failing to do what they are best in. These forthright remarks and visible evidence that success is attainable tend to encourage the grads to follow their hearts. Although most of the speech was full of the use of logic, the use of logical fallacies was evident. He committed fallacy when discussing the third story about death. He says that remembering that he will die is what empowers him to make good choices in life. He says that, “Remembering that Ill be dead soon is the most important tool Ive ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.” This is fallacy because most people are discouraged by the idea of death. If people remember about death, they may decide not to work hard because after all they will not enjoy the fruit of their success. Within Steve Jobs’ presentation is a structured and suggestive argument purposed in persuading his audience to follow their passion in order to achieve success. His speech was developed in a way in which life experience examples and evidences are highlighted while occasionally pairing them with powerful emotions. Besides, without his personal experience regarding the topic of success, none of these strategies would have been as effective towards his audience. Steve Jobs intertwines these multiple parts of persuasion to convince the audience of the significance of following passion. He nicely connects the three stories with his emotions leaving the graduates empowered. Steve Jobs uses emotionally charged stories as well as elegant, simple and intellect words in his speech to portray his character and eligibility that work well in addressing and motivating the graduates. Works Cited Jobs, Steve. "How to Live Before You Die" Stanford University. Stanford University, 14 June 2005. Web. 11 Feb. 2014. . Read More