Please revise this essay. I have to discuss President Bush's use of persuasive appeals in his September llth Address to the Nation. Examine how he uses these appeals to achieve his purpose and how President Bush structures his speech.
I have to talk about the appeals (ehots, pathos, and logos)
I wonder if I explained how and why for each examples for the appeals.
Please give some feedback/comments.
THANK YOU!!!
Many had suffered through their lives surviving the September 11th attack. Some were able to survive while others couldn't. Due to the attack, others had felt weak and aren't able to move on with their life. As a result, President Bush reassures others to be strong together even though their loved ones had past away in September 11th. In President Bush's September 11th Address to the Nation, he uses appeals to structure his speech in order to show an easier understanding of the purpose.
President Bush appeals to emotions more than logics and authority throughout the speech. President Bush tries to make people feel better when he says "the victims in airplanes or in their offices-secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers. Moms and dads. Friends and neighbors." He accentuates that different level of class men all have an equal chance of dying. Everyone, at some point in their lives, have all suffered and lost somebody, because that's how life is intended to be. He gets personal by the end of the quote when he concluded "moms and dads..." which indicate that even the cherished ones decease. President Bush is making people feel better, because some may think how it's not fair for them to loose the ones they love. Another example, President Bush states that "terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America" in which President Bush develops a tone of strength of how to be strong when an attack occurs again. He discusses that a terrorist attack cannot destroy the strength that Americans have when he applies the metaphor that compares steel to strength. The audience feels that America will be well prepared if such thing happens again now. President Bush utilizes emotions in his speech when he revealed our responsibilities to take care of "those who have been injured and to take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks." This portrays the protective tone that President Bush establishes with strong chosen words. The chosen words that Bush had concluded in his speech are "help", "precaution", and "protect" which are all words that make a person feel more secured. Bush makes the audiences feel the emotions that he had wanted them to aim for to understand the speech which helps them to move on with life.
President Bush presents his authority to the audience by appealing to his attack in the speech to claim that he had "implemented our government's emergency response plans. Our military is powerful, and it's prepared. Our emergency teams are working in New York City and Washington, D.C., to help with local rescue efforts." He uses the word "I" demonstrating his power of authority that he had realized what the plan was going to be. Bush wants to make the people believe in him that the emergency teams will work and prepare together to achieve further attacks that may occur in the future. For another instance, President Bush sounds stronger as a leader as he "directed the full resources for our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and bring them to justice." He uses the most common first person word "I" highlighting that he was the one who had informed the army to find the terrorist who had caused this attack. The word "I" had identifies the written voice in the argument, because he only included himself in the situation and not "we." Bush supports his sayings with logical reasons that America "had stood down enemies before, and... will do so this time." Bush applies this logical reason to make people feel more optimistic, so they would have the confidence that America can do face this situation. Somebody's mind can be lead to thinking in a much better way as authority is applied to this speech.
In appealing to logic, President Bush inserts cause and effect into the speech saying that "America and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world leaders who have called to offer this condolence and assistance." If we join together as one to protect America, we will win the war when facing up against terrorists. Bush was confidence that they will win the war if they form a whole group, making others feeling comforted. He had also utilizes religious texts as he said "and I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evils, for You are with me.'" The "You" being capitalized is referred to God. Bush portrays his religious side of him, because most people are somehow religious in their own ways. He reveals that he believed in God when he said "I ask for your prayers...pray..." in which is using the word "pray" couple times. If there was an atheist President, he wouldn't be using such religious quote and telling people to pray for others. He hopes that real text would help people feel better since it's real. Logos can be the only thing that helps reassured people since it's more logical.
In conclusion, the purpose of the speech was to help Americans to establish the sense of security and unite them. As a result, President Bush appeals to emotion, logic, and authority. They had helped President Bush to achieve his purpose of making people feel strong after the September 11th attack. Even the structure makes a difference to the speech in many ways. The speech was effective with strong chosen words such as "help", "precaution", and "protect" that fit perfectly into the speech. By appealing to emotion, authority, and logics, as well as using strong effective words, President Bush successfully accomplished his purpose.
Your analysis of the speech seems a bit shallow. For instance, in the quotes you gave, his focus on "We" and "our" seem more important, as he tries to bring the nation together in common cause. His appeal to religion continues this, in a sense, given that the vast majority of Americans profess to believe in a higher power. It also lays the groundwork for an "us" versus "them" scenario, in which God and the right are on America's side. This is eminently useful, if you are entering into war. Good people will kill, rape, and torture "the enemy" with abandon, when they would never dream of using violence against another human being normally. And if you are going to go to war, you need to be willing to fight it totally and utterly if you expect to win. I suspect the religious references were also chosen to resonate with the Bible's apocalyptic prediction of a war in the Middle East between the forces of good and evil, though that could be overreaching a bit. In any event, those are some of the more obvious things that come to mind just reading the bits you quoted. I'm sure an analysis of the entire speech could go into a lot more depth.
because that's how life is intended to be.
How life is intended to be (intended by whom?) or, simply, how life
is?
Bush portrays his religious side of him, because most people are somehow religious in their own ways.
Bush references a Christian psalm because "most people are somehow religious in their own ways" or because he is preparing to launch a war on a Muslim nation?
Logos can be the only thing that helps reassured people since it's more logical.
Religion is the opposite of logos. When Bush asks people to pray, this is pathos. When he implicitly references his own Christianity in order to get Christian listeners to trust him, this is ethos.
Religion rarely, if ever, appeals to reason. I suppose it could be considered an appeal to reason within the Christian framework, but only if you believe he was only speaking to Christians.
In any event, be careful when analyzing Bush's religious references. As Simone's comments indicate, many people saw them as framing the upcoming conflicts as holy wars, and not just the fanatics on the other side. Before going there, though, you should ask yourself whether or not you think Bush would have included the same references if the attacks had been carried out by non-religious terror groups.
Hah! The logic works, you must admit. If you believe there is a God, and that He is on your side, then it makes perfect sense to quote scripture to reassure people that the evildoers must inevitably be brought to justice through His divine will. Sure, you could ask why He would allow the attacks to be carried out in the first place, but questioning Him is a big no-no.
