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AP First Essay PDF
AP First Essay PDF
2/6/20
2R
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
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
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
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.