The 1960’s, what was thought to be the “Golden Age” but started with the continuation of the Cold War and America’s growing population in poverty. The citizens cheered at the announcement of John F. Kennedy’s victory in the election due to the confidence and hope he brought to his presidency. John F. Kennedy uses parallelism and anaphora in the inauguration speech to persuade the citizens to come together for the betterment of America.
In the speech, Kennedy uses parallelism to strengthen the country’s ideals by emphasizing the people as a whole. For example, Kennedy starts the sentence with “we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the success of liberty.” Kennedy continues to emphasize the coming together of the population by using the same parallel structure to introduce this concept.
By corresponding the sentence together by with the word “any”, Kennedy elaborates in order to protect American ideals, the people must be united towards a common goal. With the use of the parallelism as the rhetorical device, the speech provokes logos as the citizens are given techniques to contribute to the nation’s success. The propositions provided influence the country into aspiring together towards ensuring America’s fundamental values.
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In addition, Kennedy once again addresses the nation as one, concluding his speech with, “… ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.” In this instance, Kennedy addresses the people to enact a solution for the country rather than ponder on when the solution is coming. For this reason, Kennedy provokes logos as the questioning persuades the U.S to help their fellow friends or foes to improve society’s challenges. Overall, the multiple uses of parallelism illuminate the citizens of various ways to further convince America to work in unity to restore American ideals.
Furthermore, Kennedy makes use of anaphora to persuade cooperation among the people by promoting unity against common enemies. To illustrate, Kennedy begins the sentences with “Let both sides” four times, in addition to multiple steps that should be taken for the cooperation of the country to be obtained. The use of anaphora in these four sentences, provoke pathos to lure the people in and create a feeling of courage and determination.
With Kennedy’s powerful words, the audience can imply the United States can overcome adversities and strive for global improvement. By appealing to those emotions, Kennedy can entice America in his aspiration for the bettering of all countries. To further illustrate, another example of anaphora is “To those old allies… To those new states… To those people…” Kennedy’s main purpose in using anaphora at the beginning of these three sentences is to show the positive benefits of cooperation between nations.
These examples emit the feeling of peacefulness as working together instead of against would bring an end to all terror. In the end, Kennedy continues to persuade the citizens of America of the outweighing benefits cooperation has between nations as opposed to the alternatives.
Altogether, by using parallelism and anaphora in the inauguration speech, John F. Kennedy sways the United States to work together to lead America peacefully. Kennedy is inaugurated into his presidency with a broken nation but wants to leave with a society that is unified. The assassination was not the end for Kennedy, but his powerful words he left for each person to ponder on what could they do to make a change in the nation.
