Amelia Livingston

2/6/20

2R

First Rhetorical Analysis

In 1997, Madeleine Albright gave a speech as the United States Secretary of State to the

graduating class of Mount Holyoke College. In this speech, Albright delivers a message that

praises the idea of ambition fueled by core values. Her speech appeals to the graduates’ role as

scholars and women. She hopes to inspire the next generation of women to rise above

circumstance and fight for the change that they see necessary. Through the use of word choice,

parallelism, and logos, Albright creates an ideologically motivating rhetoric to inspire the next

female generation of the country.

One of Albright’s most distinctive strategies is the implementation of logos, which

strengthens her message with reasoning and relatability. For example, Albright sandwiches her

speech with references to the past successes of the U.S., such as the continuation in “enlarging

and adopting NATO and striving to to create a future for Europe.” (Lines 10/11) This allusion

displays the real world application of endless achievement through the example of America’s

goal-driven leadership and policies. This puts the prosperous world that the graduates can look

forward to joining, on display. Albright adds to the references by giving the audience a personal

witness of struggle-to-change in Africa where she saw “women taking the lead in efforts to avoid

the fate of the neighboring Rwanda, where violence left three quarters of the female population

widow.” (Lines 52-55) This anecdote attests to the power of change and inspires the audience to

realize their ability to make that same change.

 By using a wide array of motivational word choice, Albright invokes emotion to make

her message more memorable amongst the graduates. For example, Albright uses contrasting

word choice to set up an ultimatum regarding the different ways one can choose to live their life.

She states, “each of us must choose to live our lives narrowly, selfishly and complacently, or to

act with courage and faith.” (Lines 1-3) This triggers a combination of fear and motivation in the

audience’s mind by presenting them a path to strive for and a path to avoid. Albright further

builds on her emotional word choice by ending her speech with positive connotation such as ,“in

these beautiful surroundings, at this celebration of warm memory and high expectation...” (Lines

96/97) This serves to add the sensation of excitement, drive, and appreciation in the hearts of the

graduates to leave a happy mark on their future pursuits.

Albright uses the rhetorical concept of parallelism in order to create connections that

offer a deeper understanding in her message. For example, she begins her paragraphs with short

and powerful opening sentences that encapsulate a certain place or event. She starts the second,

fourth, and seventh paragraphs with sentences like, “The Berlin Wall is now a memory”, “The

fighting in Bosnia has stopped.”, and “Mount Holyoke is home” (Lines 9, 21, 45). These

similarly brief and impactful statements give an obvious correlation between the allusions and

the idea of opportunity to achieve. Albright reinforces her parallelism strategy in the closing

couple paragraphs where she redirects her speech to the audience’s future by starting each

paragraph with, “...if you aim high enough”. (Lines 75, 81, 88) This parallelism is used to deliver

her message in the most deliberately obvious and gripping way. It imprints the notion of

dreaming big in the graduates’ minds to allow them to visualize themselves achieving their own

personal goals.
 Throughout this speech, Albright seeks to inspire college graduates to lead productive

and impactful lives as women through the tools of motivational word choice, parallel structure,

and logos. Madeleine Albright ends her speech by bringing the focus of her message to the

present day and the future of the graduates. To close, she sends the audience off with a picture of

how successful their lives would be if they stay driven and fill their lives with purpose. With her

words, impact, and presence, the graduates are given a head strong start to enter the world that

she and the rest of society have left them to take care of.