Rhetorical Analysis Of Steel

1101 Words5 Pages
On April 10, 1962, the United States steel companies decided to raise the price of steel by 3.5 percent during one of the nation’s most traumatic wars that affect the veterans still to this day: the Vietnam War. To put things in perspective, steel prices have effects on nearly everything, such as the cost of homes, the cost of appliances, and the cost of building infrastructures. President Kennedy had been calling for stable and affordable steel prices for a long time at this point in time; however, the steel companies still raised the price. The day after the increase in steel prices, President Kennedy held a news conference to call out the steel companies. In this news conference, President John F. Kennedy delivers a speech that employs several rhetorical devices, specifically repetition, ethos, and pathos in order to incite the audience to protest against the steel companies; which would, in turn, inflict pressure on the steel companies to lower the cost of steel. Throughout his speech, Kennedy utilizes a rhetorical device called repetition. Kennedy applies this strategy when he states, “...It would make it more difficult for American Goods to compete in foreign markets, more difficult to withstand competition from foreign imports and thus more difficult to improve our balance of payment positions…”(Ln. 35-40) The evidence clearly represents repetition because the phrase “more difficult” repeats exactly three times. Repetition enables Kennedy to provoke urgency by repetition of the same phrase with regards to convincing the audience into exhorting the steel companies. Then, Kennedy further employs repetition when he expounds on the problems already existing in America, and now the steel companies add on to the stress by increasing steel prices. When he says, “...when we are confronted with grave crisis and Berlin in Southeast Asia, when we are devoting our energies to economic recovery and stability…”(Ln. 6-9) Kennedy repeats the phrase “when we are” in order to allow Kennedy to persuade the audience to protest against the rise in steel prices so that the steel companies lower the price of steel. The audience will then see that the hike in steel prices will affect them, which would then produce in them a
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