Rhetorical devices
Obama uses various rhetorical devices to improve the flow of her speech and make her argument more convincin…
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Allusions
Obama makes several allusions in this speech, to famous quotations, historical events and the present day.
On the first page, she alludes to the Emancipation Proclamation as the historical occasion that marked the end of slavery in the US (ll. 47-48). This gives her a starting point for her story about education and discrimination for African Americans, as it was the point when it became technically legal for them to go to school. However, the fact that she uses this historical moment as a starti…
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Antithesis
In rhetorical terms, antithesis means mentioning two opposites together in order to use the contrast to make a point. There are a couple of examples of this in Obama’s speech.
The main example of antithesis is her comparison of young people in the past and present and their respective attitudes to ed…
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Imagery and metaphors
Obama does not use very much imagery in this speech, though her ongoing metaphor that talks about a hunger for education is interesting: “Hungry to get what they needed to succeed in this country. And that hunger did not fade over time. If anything, it only grew stronger.” (ll. 121-125)
By continually using hunger as a…
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Repetition
Repetition is used frequently in this speech. There are several examples of anaphora, where Obama begins several sentences in a row with the same word or phrase, such as: “…if you don’t like what they’re watching on TV, turn it off. If you don’t like the video games they’r…
