Week-3-rhetorical-analysis-essay-duty-honor-country 1 PDF

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Gossard 1 General Douglas MacArthur: Duty, Honor, Country Before reading this speech given by General Douglas MacArthur, I asked myself “What do those words mean to me?” After reading this poetic speech, my perspective on the matter was changed in the writer's favor. This speech was given to the cadets of the U.S. Military Academy when accepting the Sylvanus Thayer Award, on May 12th, 1962 (“General MacArthur's Thayer Award Speech”). This speech was given to rally the cadets and instill these virtues in each and every one of them. The masterful use of the rhetorical triangle is evident while reading this speech as he instills the virtues of “Duty, Honor, and Country in his audience. General Douglas MacArthur effectively used ethos in his speech by establishing himself as an authority and by drawing upon the credibility of others. In the beginning he begins by addressing two generals by name. This helped give him credibility during his speech. This implied that he could recognize, and call by name, two high ranking officers. This also indicated these generals would also know the speaker, given his title of general as well. General MacArthur goes on to further establish himself by including in his speech, on several occasions, details or accounts of his own personal experience. “Coming from a profession I have served so long, and a people I have loved so well, it fills me with an emotion I cannot express,” is sentence used in the beginning of his speech. He speaks from his own personal experience to add credibility to his statements. One can assume this will help others in the audience to identify with the topics he was discussing. MacArthur borrowed credibility from others in his speech as well. In his comment, “Their story is known to all of you. It is the story of the American man-atarms,” he raises the argument that regardless of what he himself says, we all know the stories of the people who see combat. He was successful in using the thousand and thousands of experiences passed through time to add credibility to his statements and make them even stronger. The use of ethos was not riddled throughout the speech given, but the tactics used were powerful enough to establish MacAarthur as a man whose opinion should be heard. Logos was utilized as a powerful tool during MacArthur's speech. MacArthur used his own personal account, as well as great details, to help paint a picture for his audience. Rather than simply stating a concept, MacArthur used his linguistic skills to personify the concepts of “Duty, Honor, Country” into a tangible concept for all listeners. He also takes the time to tie together groups of nouns that resonate and describe his feelings towards these concepts to help argue his stance. A few examples used during his speech were “I possess not the eloquence of diction, that poetry of imagination, nor that brilliance of metaphor to tell you all that they mean”, “your future roles as custodians of the nations defense”, “I could see that staggering columns of the First World War, bending under soggy packs, on many a weary march from dipping dusk to drizzling dawn.” MacArthur truly paints a picture with the greatest of detail. There is scarcely a paragraph in this speech that does not include details of this specificity. I believe the use of logos is a main component to the speech's popularity and use in literary context. The main element of the rhetorical triangle that is most evident in this speech would have to pathos. While reading this speech, one cannot help but to embody the virtues of “Duty, Honor,...