Throughout the speech, Earl Spencer uses very emotive language, which reinforces the feeling that the public have “lost someone close to them.” His portrayal of Diana as “the peoples princess” intensifies the sense of loss.
He uses lots of abstract nouns, to create an image of Diana e.g. “the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty.” The group of four descriptive words emphasises these images. He also uses metaphors, like “sparkle” which makes people think of light, a symbol of life and vitality.
He always refers to his sister as Diana, never as princess or Lady, which would be to formal, making it sound less emotional; but also never as “Di”, which would be to informal and personal for a funeral speech aimed at so many.
Earl Spencer creates many contradicting images, which balance each other out. He often mentions religious references, “God granted you but half a life”, “God given”, “rush to canonise”. This creates an angelic picture in the minds of the audience, which would seem exaggerated, but he also describes Diana as a human. “Insecure person”.
Madeline Kennedy
This balance between contradictory images, and suitably formal writing style helps to make the speech so powerful.
He uses pronouns like “we”, and “our” which unite the audience, making them feel like the whole nation is grieving with them.
The pronouns shift, as he speaks to Diana herself, “you brightened our lives”, then again, towards then end of the speech, to “I”. This makes it seem like he is releasing his own personal emotions, showing the side of Diana he knew. These changes in pronouns not only change the way the audience feel, but add variety to the speech, which could otherwise be boring.
In conclusion, I think that Earl Spencer’s speech is well written in terms of its effectiveness. It is raw and emotive, partly because it is very subjective. Bearing in mind that this was written so soon after the Princesses sudden death, this is not surprising. It provoked strong feelings and may have seemed appropriate to the audience at the time. On reading this speech nearly five years after it was given, it seems a strange speech to direct at such a wide and public audience. I am not sure how much it says about Diana as a real person, or how accurate it is as a record of events. It may say as much, if not more, about Earl Spencer than Princess Diana.