Analysing Barack Obamas Election Victory Speech

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Analysing Barack Obama’s Election Victory Speech

Barack Obama is a very successful speaker, and uses a variety of methods to captivate the audience and make his message clear to everyone.  From the introduction of the speech we can clearly see that the tone of the speech is inspirational. The speech is about change and reaching towards unity and a better future for America.

As we can see from his opening sentence (“This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations”), we see that Obama is clearly referring to the fact that he had made history by becoming the first black president. However, the way that he breezes past this achievement shows that he does not believe that believe this is an important fact. The reference to the future shows he hopes that his achievements will be remembered in the future, not his race.

Very soon into the speech he uses an anecdote (“But one that’s on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta”) which is very significant to his cause and his beliefs. These anecdotes are a very efficient way of putting across a serious message in an easy to understand, appealing way for the audience. During this anecdote, he talks about some of the horrific things that have happened in American history which include slavery and sexism. However he moves on from these points to talk about the better current standards, showing how America can push forward and grow. This is reassuring to the audience and shows them how he believes he can push America further. These little stories make the speech more personal and make the speech seem conversational.

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Obama also uses many balanced sentences to make the speech more enjoyable to hear. Examples of these include “the heartache and the hope” which is a powerful phrase since it contains alliteration and contained positive and negative connotations. “The struggle and the progress” is another good example, since it shows a negative idea which becomes a positive one, highlighting his belief he can bring America up and onwards.

Obama also uses some tripling in his speech (“The buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma”) Tripling is very effective here and creates a sense of progression through ...

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