Condoleezza Rice's Speech Rhetorical Analysis

On May 12, 2012, the former U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, gave her commencement speech to the graduating class of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. The purpose of this speech was to have her audience understand what they are capable of and how building their future is the future. The address entailed how the students are responsible for carrying out the rest of their lives like they have not done before and the importance of service for others. She included making the impossible seem like the inevitable and making the world around them a better place for everyone. Although Condoleezza Rice can appeal to the audience in a lively manner, she is also able to appeal to ethos through rhetorical modes, logos through her organization and diction, and pathos through the mood and tone she carries throughout; making her purpose of convincing the graduates of a better world being inevitable and not impossible. She can also connect with the audience to reinforce the lessons she spoke to them.

Condoleezza Rice appealed to methods using the point of view and rhetorical devices to convince the audience to help the ones in need and believed in making a better world for themselves. At the beginning of her speech, Rice uses the first person point of view, saying, "Now what do I mean by human progress," (Para.1). Here she was able to create credibility for her build of ethos. This was by involving herself in the speech making the audience or graduates likely to listen and build a relationship. Rhetorical modes are also used by narrating her own life, "I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama- a place quite properly called the most segregated city in America…" (Para. 2). This mode of narration helps Rice appeal to ethos by creating a foundation for the speech yet to come. Now that there is a familiar foundation, the audience can relate to her and become more willing to listen.

Rice uses logos to convince the graduates to create a better world for the less fortunate by making the "impossible the inevitable" by using particular diction and organization. In the last four paragraphs of Rice's speech, she uses what is called sequencing. She is able to go through a timeline of U.S. history almost to show what not to repeat in the future. By using this, Rice can show examples of how life in the U.S. has never been fair for everyone and be able to give the graduates an understanding and concept of how to help society. Rice also appeals to logos using diction when describing democracy. "But stable democracy requires more than just the institutionalization of freedom. It requires that there can be no tyranny of the majority. And most importantly, it requires that the strong cannot exploit the weak" (Para 5). She can also use logic to appeal to logos by using definitions in her speech. This allows the audience to understand clearly and act with a sense that they need to help the world become fairer.

Rice lastly appeals to pathos to convince the audience to create a better world for everyone by using tone and mood. In paragraph 3, "Somehow these people were just "different," that meant "unworthy" of what we enjoy." This was Rice talking about the unfair treatment of blacks that happened not too long ago; this created almost a feeling of disappointment that helped carry Rice's purpose. It also made the graduates feel a pushing sense to go out and fix the already broken world and begin to see from a different perspective. Yet, at the same time, Rice was also able to create a sense of hope within the audience, "You see, things that seem impossible very often seem inevitable in retrospect." (Para. 10). This was one of her last sentences and it helped leave the audience in a hopeful mood and feeling like they too can change the world for the better and have confidence while doing it.

To contrast those ideas though, Rice's tone and diction were confusing and hard to understand. There were many parts where she didn't speak sequentially, which may have mistaken the audience and made the message seem slightly harder to understand. The graduates have an extended amount of stress on themselves as they enter into a new world, at times Rice made this feeling worse by putting the future on them. Even though this is true and needs to be said, taking the context of the speech and audience may be good to consider.

Being able to appeal to the graduates of Southern Methodist University using logos, ethos, and pathos, Condoleezza Rice was able to convey her message to her audience. She also was able to use such rhetoric as a point of view, modes, organization, diction, and mood, to name a few. By doing this and using rhetorical devices, she convinced the audience to make the world a better place for themselves and everyone else in the future.