Analysis of Barack Obamas Inaugural Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Analysis of Barack Obamas Inaugural - Essay Example The result is an incredibly effective speech which I find very stirring emotionally, focusing on a communal struggle rather than his own abilities, so much so that it is difficult to fault it on a lack of logical proposals.   His uses ethos and pathos to emphasize communal struggle as the central aspect of his presidency while filling in the hole with logos to reassure the more critical of the audience, which combines to make an incredibly stirring speech. Barack Obama’s inauguration took place on January 20th, 2009 on the steps of the American Capital building. Much of the context surrounding this speech was entirely traditional to a presidential inauguration – the date in cold late January, the same location as every other inauguration since the capital buildings were built. But the context also had important aspects to it that were unique to this particular event. First, the event was historic, even for an inauguration address. Barack Obama was the first black person ever elected as president of the United States, which in and of itself was important (Tufankjian). He also had by far the most grass-roots campaign that had ever elected a president in recent memory, with the most amount of small donors (Tufankjian). This leads to his rhetoric focusing highly on ideas of communal struggle while eschewing his independent role. Furthermore, America was in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the great depression, s o a tone of hope was important for his speech. Probably the least overplayed part of Obama’s speech was his ethos. Rather than build himself up as a toweringly powerful candidate, or focusing on his position as one of the preeminent constitutional law scholars in America, Obama focused on his humble beginning to try to make himself an everyman, position himself as an outsider who understood the common people’s needs.     Ã‚