Huerta 1

Juan Huerta

English

Mr. Oh

Period 5

10/13/18

GPO: Communicating Ideas

Race to Outer Space

September 12, 1962, John F. Kennedy held a speech at Rice Stadium which was very

well persuaded to the crowd in attendance to embark on a mission to the moon. The Soviets were

in lead to reach the moon until this speech was given publicly. This speech had on their feet as

they were persuaded to support and also ride along this milestone. Successfully convinced that

this is something that’ll improve the status and reputation of the United States. He properly did

this by using anaphora, metonymy, and parallelism.

J.F.K. uses anaphora as a tool to support his proposal to why we’re going to the moon.

He states, “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the

other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to

organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we

are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the

others, too.”. This backs up his point of why go to the moon when it can be just as dangerous as

anything else even without conflict. This persuades the crowd because the clauses are successive
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and grasp the audience even more in. It gives reasons why this particular task is important to

achieve. The way he persuaded the crowd was by re-emphasizing the specific thing which is

going to the moon and why the topic is much of a necessity to do. Since it has a sense of

repetition, the audience is able to quickly note why it’s being brought up.

Kennedy uses metonymy because the country hasn’t vowed anything, but the people

have. Paragraph eight he says, “Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this

Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first.”. He doesn’t leave anyone out when he

refers to the Nation, bringing any and everyone into the process of sending people to the moon,

not just those chosen to be in the space program. The people are being associated as the “nation”

intending to define what they are in responsible in vowing to be the first country to set foot on

the moon. This being said, the “Nation” needs to fulfill the objective of reaching it first then the

others.

Pres. Kennedy uses parallelism to persuade that space is just as dangerous as anything

else, yet we still want to embark this ride. The beginning sentences from paragraph ten quote,

“There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile

to us all.”. It is our choice, as a nation, to go to the moon because it’s a challenge that we, the

people, have to accept. By accepting, we face the difficulties encountered on this journey to

triumph. Parallelism takes a role because the use of the repetitious words emphasizes a powerful

point. It’s a notice that outer space isn’t dangerous, but it’s hostile. Parallelism has equal force

and similarities when used.

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President John F. Kennedy wanted to convince and persuade the nation in his “We choose to go

to the moon speech” that going to the moon and space exploration is a giant leap for man and

it’ll make the United States more superior than any other nation. By doing this, it’ll prove the

things we can do as a country and what we can achieve. Space exploration was the opening to

make this nation expand in its many unique ways.