Isabella Vaughn

IB LA 11

McKay

Madeleine Albright, The Secretary of State of the United States, gave a speech in 1997

to the graduating class of a women’s college in Massachusetts. The message of this speech

was to describe the ways in which she and other people must not turn their backs on issues that

occurred in the past, because there can always be more change to prevent it from happening

again in the future. In this speech, she explains different ways in which she herself faced the

issue head-on, and then goes on to explain how the audience of her words can participate in

this as well, and apply these things to their own lives. The rhetorical strategies she uses are key

to presenting this, and one can imagine how these things would be effective in a spoken speech

given to hundreds of people. Repetition is one of the major elements used in this speech, along

with words of persuasion to invoke emotions of motivation and encouragement in the audience.

Madeleine Albright’s use of rhetorical devices is vital in forming her strategy to convey a

motivational message to the audience to invoke change in the world.

Throughout each paragraph of this commencement speech, there are many repetitive

lines used by the speaker, Albright. From lines 9-40, the audience can see that she uses the

words, “we could,” and “instead,” multiple times in almost every paragraph. The context of this is

Madeleine explaining how “we could” turn our backs on a specific issue, but “instead,” we will

work to reconstruct a system that prevents these things from happening again. This continuous

repeating of words brings the audience closer to the speech being said and makes them really

realize what is being said. The use of the word “could,” instead of any other word may also bring

out a bit of guilt in the listener because Albright makes it seem like the less optimal option in her

speech. She also uses repetition when talking about the women she has spoken to in different

countries and the amazing efforts they take to fight for change, starting with the country she
went to, a variation of the words “I met with,” and then the people she spoke to. (Lines 49-63)

The last major use of repetition is in the final paragraphs, where Albright reaches out to the

audience and says, “if you aim high enough. . .” (Lines 69-88). This last strategy is one of the

most important used, in order to create the feeling of being important in the listener. It will make

someone feel like they can do anything, which therefore contributes to Madeleine’s message of

the speech.

These last few paragraphs are also where she uses many devices in order to make the

audience feel related to. This also helps her cause because it makes the audience want to do

something good, as Albright is speaking to them personally and directly. She states, “Each has

suffered blows, but each has proceeded with courage. Each has preserved.” (Lines 67, 68) This

statement made by Albright is a very relatable statement to the listeners, that many of them

would be able to apply themselves to in relation. Therefore, this creates a sense of relationship

between the speaker and listener, which makes everything the speaker just said more likely to

stay in the thoughts of the audience, which makes it more likely to be acted upon. Each phrase

said after the words, “if you aim high enough. . .” contribute to this relationship as well because

they are all statements aimed directly at the listener themselves, not just statements said to

contribute to a cause. The emotions that the last seven paragraphs invoke in the audience are

incredibly powerful because they contribute directly to how the speaker is trying to make the

audience feel, in this case, emotions of motivation, relatability, and wanting to make a change in

the world.

Madeleine Albright’s speech to the graduating class of a womens’ college was incredibly

important in motivating people to make vital changes in their individual lives, community, and

the world, and she did so by using repetition, and invoking emotions in her listeners.