Speech Analysis Part 2: Obama’s Victory Speech in Chicago

U.S President Barrack Obama, a man that can be watched and admired for his intriguing style of positive charisma, can address to an enormous group of supporters and voters, with confidence that will lift your soul from upheaval. You can consider this man as the Shakespeare of Presidency because his plans for America are just brilliant; he thinks “outside the box” rather than having a very narrow mind. He sees how to solve problems from all different angles and then analyzes what way is the best for America, even though they might not be perfect like he says himself, but his plans are better than any other president I seen so far. Comparing Obama’s two speeches I noticed that in his acceptance speech he made promises of what he can bring to America and how the Bush administration lost jobs and what his role was going to be to bring the Americans’ growth, especially in the financial sector. In the second speech about his victory he talks about the tasks ahead and how to create more jobs back and have more people working again without worrying about losing their jobs. The Acceptance speech felt more prepared, inspiring, profound than the Victory speech because he felt a bit dim and having a less hostile impact. For some reason it also seemed to me that he came well-built in the first speech as if he came very aggressive like “a gun with bullets” and in the victory speech he came like “a gun without bullets.” I think the reason for this is because in the first one he was persuading people to believe in him and in the second one he already knew he had the upper hand so he didn’t have to make a lot of persuasive points since he already gained victory. Overall to me reading this speech was much easier, enjoyable, and much more relatable to me because I see people losing jobs here in Ontario’s manufacturing sector everyday and it seems to be a vicious cycle that tends to repeating itself because of America’s unhealthy economy

Obama’s unique form of speech writing is straightforward and isn’t “sugar-coated”. In both of his speeches he uses rhetorical devices to enhance his points and arguments and engage the audience. Due to his fatigue, or a problem, Obama failed to use the rhetorical devices efficiently in his Victory speech, compared with the audience reactions from his Acceptance speech, where the crowds would applaud constantly and cheer him on. You can see the signs of fatigue when he says his powerful phrase, “Yes, we can!”, as he says this phrase a couple of times (Repetition) without any putting emphasis or emotions (Exaggeration) for that phrase, which is a powerful symbolic phrase he used to get to where he is today. We can clearly see Obama’s intellectual skills in English as he is able to incorporate most if not all of the common rhetorical devices.

Overall the rhetorical devices used were very effective. Obama really engaged his audience, and even persuade the whole world. I hope now that Obama can deliver his promises, and make this world a better and peaceful world. I hope he can be like Abraham Lincoln, and bring focus on human rights, as human rights in Sri Lanka and in many other parts of the world are being limited and restricted.