Rhetorical situation

Speaker

The speaker of the “Audacity of Hope” speech is Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States. Obama delivers his speech in 2004 at the Democratic Convention and endorses the Democrat candidate for the presidency, John Kerry. At the time the speech was delivered, Obama was State Senator for Illinois. 

Obama is also a keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic Conference, which means that his speech sets the central tone and theme of the event. The “Audacity of Hope” speech mainly calls for national unity and the end of useless divisions that separate America. 

Obama begins his speech with a personal story, which helps him form an emotional connection with the audience straight away: “My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my ...