One figure of speech that MLK uses is similes when he he refers to his cause "like a mighty stream." Another figure of speech is anaphora when MLK repeats the phrase "If I had sneezed" and then follows it with a prediction for the future.
MLK was a great public speaker and because of this people would travel far and wide to hear is message. His message was simple, equality for all people. He was also a great leader like moses MLK foreshadows his own death by saying "I have seen the promised land. I may not get there with you."
MLK and Moses know that they are not the ones who are in control. God is in control and both Moses and MLK know that their people will get to the promised land.
The ending of the speech is rhetorically effective in that it the link between Moses's speech and MLK's point to a better future for their people.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
General Patton’s Speech to the Third Army Analysis
Matthew Porter
2/24/12
Analysis of Famous Speeches
Professor Gillespie
General Patton’s Speech to the Third Army
General George Smith Patton, Jr., was born on November 11, 1885. To say that Patton Grew up in a military family is an understatement. He was related to General Hugh Mercer who served in the American Revolution, His great Uncle Walter Patton died in the Civil War from wounds sustained at the battle of Gettysburg. After a rough start at the Virginia Military Institute Patton left and enrolled in the United States Military Academy. In 1912 Patton attended the Olympics and placed 12th overall in the pentathlon. He took fourth in fencing and after the Olympics he studied under the French “Master of Arms” After this Patton was made the “Master of the Sword” and he was the Army’s youngest ever. It was at this point that he both taught fencing techniques and designed what would be called the Patton Saber. Patton served in an expedition to capture Poncho Villa. Although they failed in capturing their target they did kill two high ranking Mexican soldiers. This made Patton somewhat famous across America. In World War One Patton rose through the ranks from Captain to Colonel. Patton started the war instructing Tank operators and then later commanding tanks in battle. After one particular battle Patton was wounded and was in a hospital until the end of the war. In the years before World War Two Patton met Dwight D. Eisenhower and the two of them developed what was called the armored doctrine that would be used in World War Two. Ten years before the attack on Pearl Harbor Patton wrote a defensive plan entitled “Surprise” it was a plan predicting an air attack on the Harbor. Patton was placed in command of Fort Mayer when Germany was launching it’s first attacks in Europe. Colonel Patton was then promoted to brigadier general after taking command of the 2nd Armored Brigade. On April 4th 1940 he was promoted to Major General and later given command of the 2nd Armored Division. Patton Was in Command of the United States Third Army in the build up to World War 2. It was from his first days as acting leader of the Third Army that Patton put a strong emphasis on forward movement and the need to stay in contact with the enemy. After serving in the North African Campaign and lowering casualty rates due to his strict standards. This discipline was rewarded by quick victories. These performances were rewarded and Patton was given command of the Seventh Army. It was after the Sicily Campaign and the day before the invasion of D-Day that Patton delivered his famous speech. After the speech the Seventh Army stormed the beachhead and took control of the German defenses despite several German counter attacks.
Throughout his illustrious career General Patton was a leader who earned respect. The best example of the way he did this was in the North Africa campaign, his soldiers liked serving under him because they believed that their chances of making it through the war were better than with another general. Patton made some unpopular decisions, but he did them to restore discipline to the army. By the time of his speech Patton’s credibility in front of the Third Army was well deserved. He was a seasoned and successful General who had been in many campaigns. Patton had not been taught in depth on rhetoric by any school and this is evident in his style of speaking, it has a style that is informal. Patton gave several versions of the same speech but the one before D-Day is the most popular. His delivery is loose, not sticking to one style, and he used a multitude of colorful language. However, even though his speech was so informal it was full of characteristics of general rhetorical style, such as victamage and metaphor.
The immediate audience, being the Third Army, was full of young men who were about to face one of the biggest challenges of their lives, some would not live through it. The secondary audience was the whole armed forces of the United States; Patton’s speech was passed around throughout the Army on leaflets. The large audience was full of tension and on the eve of battle. The audience gave Patton the respect which was call for, revered silence at the appropriate times and laughter and shouting at other times. The goal of the speech was to inspire the men; they hung onto Patton’s every word. The audience was extremely receptive to the arguments that Patton presented. The command of the Third Army had been using propaganda to make the men feel more confident in battle, the men had been told that one of the Germans machine guns had a “bark that was worse than it’s bite”(Decker). The men of the Third Army had many hopes and fears. Of the four hundred rookies that were at the speech, many were concerned about going into battle for the first time, but Patton addressed those fears in his speech when he called the men a team. Patton was in control the whole time he was giving his speech; he didn’t pay attention to constraints especially when it came to his use of language. He did so to gain the trust and respect of the audience. When analyzed as a drama, the Agent would be Patton, the scene would be the war camp, and the purpose was to evoke. The act was the speech itself and the agency would have been the Army.
The text of the speech comes from an unknown soldier who had the presence of mind to type up the document and have the speech distributed. General Patton never used notes because he always knew what he was about to say to his troops (Blumenson). Some unknown clerk had the presence of mind to make a carbon copy of the speech to save for posterity. More then 200 copies of the pamphlet that were handed out still exist, but there are only two know carbon copies that exist in collections.
The specific purpose of this speech was to inspire. Patton starts by going right to the point, “Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit.”(Patton) The general claims that Americans love to fight. He points out that Americans value a winner, and despise a coward. Patton then gives three specific reasons why the men are there. The first is they are there to defend there homes and loved ones, secondly for their own self respect, and finally because they are “real men” who like to fight. Patton gives an example to emphasize the importance of drilling and always being alert. He speaks about a man who fell asleep at his post and because of it 400 men were dead. Fortunately they were Germans and nor Americans. Another example that Patton gives is of an officer who had a bullet through his lung and yet he was able to kill a German without having a gun and then he managed to shoot another. Patton used this example to illustrate the point that a man can still fight even if he is wounded or unarmed. The first account of the 400 Germans who were killed was met with silence because the soldiers did not know which side had lost the men, but when they found out “The men slapped their legs and rolled in glee.”(Hirshson)This testimony was believable because many of the men had heard of the stories of General Patton fighting in North Africa and Sicily. The story was excepted because the men needed confidence that the enemy would not be as alert as they would be the next day. For that specific audience the argument was effective, sound, and ethical. The men of the Third Army didn’t want to hear lies on the eve of battle; they would have wanted some glorious truth. With a different audience Patton’s language could be viewed as vulgar and obscene. His examples could be scene as to graphic, but it was what the men of the Third Army needed to hear, it was the right thing at the right time.
There is little traditional origination in the introduction to Patton’s speech. The introduction states why the men are there in three points, but those points are not revisited at any great length in the speech. Almost every new paragraph brings another point to the speech. This format is is extremely effective for an inspiring speech because it keeps the audience on the edge of their seat in anticipation of the next point. The order of paragraph is well executed. The first paragraphs after the intro are meant to reassure the men that most of them will not die, and that their drilling has paid off. The third paragraph takes a new turn it warns of the dangers of not being alert by showing how the enemy was not alert. The men reacted to this positively; this may have set the tone for the rest of the speech because Patton demonizes the Germans even more in the following paragraphs. Patton says he pities the enemy, that is how confident Patton is in his men. Patton continues by saying, “My men do not surrender” and gives an example of a hero who didn’t surrender even though he was at gunpoint. There is no clear single purpose to the speech other than to inspire. The evidence that General Patton gives is spaced well and they give clear understanding of his ideas.
The style in which Patton delivered his speech is a mixture of the motivated sequence as well as a commemorative speech. He grabs the audience with his presence and reputation alone. The general presents solutions to the problem of the German war machine; the solution is simple, “Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts.” Patton uses visualization well in his examples of what can happen when men are not alert, as well as what can happen when a man refuses to surrender. The latter event exemplifies what will occur if his solution is implemented. The call to action is for the future, Patton didn’t want his men to have enough time to dig foxholes or to dig in anywhere, he wanted them to have forward momentum. This speech enhances group identification and the feeling of unity and bonding.
Language is used to give many clues about the speakers’ views of the opposition. One of the most explicit lines in the speech is, “We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket.” Patton Hates the Germans, from the language he uses he implies that he literally enjoys killing German soldiers. On the other side of the spectrum He spoke about himself in a similar manner, calling himself a “son of a bitch”. Patton uses coarse language to emphasize both the evil of the German Army and the powerfulness of himself and the American Army. Patton was once asked about his use of profanity by his nephew he responded by saying, “When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty... You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity." Patton has an incredible use of language to emphasize his points and it does come off eloquently in an odd way. The audience was used to that kind of language so they were able to look past the profanity and see the true message of the speech. This speech would not have been the same without the profanity.
The goal of Patton’s speech was to achieve identification with his audience and evoke action. Patton achieves identification through nationality, rights of passage, group membership, and most of all language. The audience identified with speaker because he is their leader, they wanted to listen to him. The audience identified with the topic because Patton used the language of the army to talk about war. The audience identified with the situation because they were on the eve of battle, they needed a motivational speech. Some other ways that the audience identified with Patton was through sensory imagery. Patton is mostly visual in his speech, telling stories about battles, but he also mentions food in his speech so that the soldiers use gustatory. Sensory imagery is present when Patton says, “When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!" There is Auditory from the shell, Kinetic, thermal, and tactile from wiping off “dirt” that was really blood and guts. Patton used literary imagery as well, he used simile to compare a group of truck drivers to links in a chain. “All of the links in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable.” Alliteration can be found in the first sentence, “this stuff that some sources sling” starts the speech off on the right note of tone color. Repetition is used to intensify Patton’s goal of having a quick war, “The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home.” Patton wanted the war to move quickly to minimize the losses to his army.
This speech is considered one of the most motivational speeches of all time; It was at a crucial point in history, right before America was about to launch the biggest amphibious assault in history. It is a perfect example of how a person can adapt what they say to their audience. This speech can give us a clear view of what The Army was like in World War Two. This speech accomplishes its goals to motivate the men of the Third Army and more than that it gives the audience a glimpse of General Patton’s Life. He completed all of his jobs to the fullest and executed every order. He motivated and got the most out of each soldier he commanded. It was his style of speaking, his credibility, and his audience adaptation that made his speech such a success.
Bibliography
Blumenson, Martin (1972). The Patton Papers: 1885–1940. Houghton Mifflin. pp. 231–234. ISBN 0-395-12706-8.
Decker, Jeffrey W., Logistics and Patton's Third Army: Lessons for Today's Logisticians, March 20, 2003
Hirshson, Stanley P., "Patton: A Genius For War." New York: Harper Collins id=162095. 19 Feb 2002 p.562
Biography of General George S. Patton, Jr. generalpatton.com. Retrieved November 19, 2011. pp. 194–195
The Famous Patton Speech, by Charles M. Province
2/24/12
Analysis of Famous Speeches
Professor Gillespie
General Patton’s Speech to the Third Army
General George Smith Patton, Jr., was born on November 11, 1885. To say that Patton Grew up in a military family is an understatement. He was related to General Hugh Mercer who served in the American Revolution, His great Uncle Walter Patton died in the Civil War from wounds sustained at the battle of Gettysburg. After a rough start at the Virginia Military Institute Patton left and enrolled in the United States Military Academy. In 1912 Patton attended the Olympics and placed 12th overall in the pentathlon. He took fourth in fencing and after the Olympics he studied under the French “Master of Arms” After this Patton was made the “Master of the Sword” and he was the Army’s youngest ever. It was at this point that he both taught fencing techniques and designed what would be called the Patton Saber. Patton served in an expedition to capture Poncho Villa. Although they failed in capturing their target they did kill two high ranking Mexican soldiers. This made Patton somewhat famous across America. In World War One Patton rose through the ranks from Captain to Colonel. Patton started the war instructing Tank operators and then later commanding tanks in battle. After one particular battle Patton was wounded and was in a hospital until the end of the war. In the years before World War Two Patton met Dwight D. Eisenhower and the two of them developed what was called the armored doctrine that would be used in World War Two. Ten years before the attack on Pearl Harbor Patton wrote a defensive plan entitled “Surprise” it was a plan predicting an air attack on the Harbor. Patton was placed in command of Fort Mayer when Germany was launching it’s first attacks in Europe. Colonel Patton was then promoted to brigadier general after taking command of the 2nd Armored Brigade. On April 4th 1940 he was promoted to Major General and later given command of the 2nd Armored Division. Patton Was in Command of the United States Third Army in the build up to World War 2. It was from his first days as acting leader of the Third Army that Patton put a strong emphasis on forward movement and the need to stay in contact with the enemy. After serving in the North African Campaign and lowering casualty rates due to his strict standards. This discipline was rewarded by quick victories. These performances were rewarded and Patton was given command of the Seventh Army. It was after the Sicily Campaign and the day before the invasion of D-Day that Patton delivered his famous speech. After the speech the Seventh Army stormed the beachhead and took control of the German defenses despite several German counter attacks.
Throughout his illustrious career General Patton was a leader who earned respect. The best example of the way he did this was in the North Africa campaign, his soldiers liked serving under him because they believed that their chances of making it through the war were better than with another general. Patton made some unpopular decisions, but he did them to restore discipline to the army. By the time of his speech Patton’s credibility in front of the Third Army was well deserved. He was a seasoned and successful General who had been in many campaigns. Patton had not been taught in depth on rhetoric by any school and this is evident in his style of speaking, it has a style that is informal. Patton gave several versions of the same speech but the one before D-Day is the most popular. His delivery is loose, not sticking to one style, and he used a multitude of colorful language. However, even though his speech was so informal it was full of characteristics of general rhetorical style, such as victamage and metaphor.
The immediate audience, being the Third Army, was full of young men who were about to face one of the biggest challenges of their lives, some would not live through it. The secondary audience was the whole armed forces of the United States; Patton’s speech was passed around throughout the Army on leaflets. The large audience was full of tension and on the eve of battle. The audience gave Patton the respect which was call for, revered silence at the appropriate times and laughter and shouting at other times. The goal of the speech was to inspire the men; they hung onto Patton’s every word. The audience was extremely receptive to the arguments that Patton presented. The command of the Third Army had been using propaganda to make the men feel more confident in battle, the men had been told that one of the Germans machine guns had a “bark that was worse than it’s bite”(Decker). The men of the Third Army had many hopes and fears. Of the four hundred rookies that were at the speech, many were concerned about going into battle for the first time, but Patton addressed those fears in his speech when he called the men a team. Patton was in control the whole time he was giving his speech; he didn’t pay attention to constraints especially when it came to his use of language. He did so to gain the trust and respect of the audience. When analyzed as a drama, the Agent would be Patton, the scene would be the war camp, and the purpose was to evoke. The act was the speech itself and the agency would have been the Army.
The text of the speech comes from an unknown soldier who had the presence of mind to type up the document and have the speech distributed. General Patton never used notes because he always knew what he was about to say to his troops (Blumenson). Some unknown clerk had the presence of mind to make a carbon copy of the speech to save for posterity. More then 200 copies of the pamphlet that were handed out still exist, but there are only two know carbon copies that exist in collections.
The specific purpose of this speech was to inspire. Patton starts by going right to the point, “Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit.”(Patton) The general claims that Americans love to fight. He points out that Americans value a winner, and despise a coward. Patton then gives three specific reasons why the men are there. The first is they are there to defend there homes and loved ones, secondly for their own self respect, and finally because they are “real men” who like to fight. Patton gives an example to emphasize the importance of drilling and always being alert. He speaks about a man who fell asleep at his post and because of it 400 men were dead. Fortunately they were Germans and nor Americans. Another example that Patton gives is of an officer who had a bullet through his lung and yet he was able to kill a German without having a gun and then he managed to shoot another. Patton used this example to illustrate the point that a man can still fight even if he is wounded or unarmed. The first account of the 400 Germans who were killed was met with silence because the soldiers did not know which side had lost the men, but when they found out “The men slapped their legs and rolled in glee.”(Hirshson)This testimony was believable because many of the men had heard of the stories of General Patton fighting in North Africa and Sicily. The story was excepted because the men needed confidence that the enemy would not be as alert as they would be the next day. For that specific audience the argument was effective, sound, and ethical. The men of the Third Army didn’t want to hear lies on the eve of battle; they would have wanted some glorious truth. With a different audience Patton’s language could be viewed as vulgar and obscene. His examples could be scene as to graphic, but it was what the men of the Third Army needed to hear, it was the right thing at the right time.
There is little traditional origination in the introduction to Patton’s speech. The introduction states why the men are there in three points, but those points are not revisited at any great length in the speech. Almost every new paragraph brings another point to the speech. This format is is extremely effective for an inspiring speech because it keeps the audience on the edge of their seat in anticipation of the next point. The order of paragraph is well executed. The first paragraphs after the intro are meant to reassure the men that most of them will not die, and that their drilling has paid off. The third paragraph takes a new turn it warns of the dangers of not being alert by showing how the enemy was not alert. The men reacted to this positively; this may have set the tone for the rest of the speech because Patton demonizes the Germans even more in the following paragraphs. Patton says he pities the enemy, that is how confident Patton is in his men. Patton continues by saying, “My men do not surrender” and gives an example of a hero who didn’t surrender even though he was at gunpoint. There is no clear single purpose to the speech other than to inspire. The evidence that General Patton gives is spaced well and they give clear understanding of his ideas.
The style in which Patton delivered his speech is a mixture of the motivated sequence as well as a commemorative speech. He grabs the audience with his presence and reputation alone. The general presents solutions to the problem of the German war machine; the solution is simple, “Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts.” Patton uses visualization well in his examples of what can happen when men are not alert, as well as what can happen when a man refuses to surrender. The latter event exemplifies what will occur if his solution is implemented. The call to action is for the future, Patton didn’t want his men to have enough time to dig foxholes or to dig in anywhere, he wanted them to have forward momentum. This speech enhances group identification and the feeling of unity and bonding.
Language is used to give many clues about the speakers’ views of the opposition. One of the most explicit lines in the speech is, “We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket.” Patton Hates the Germans, from the language he uses he implies that he literally enjoys killing German soldiers. On the other side of the spectrum He spoke about himself in a similar manner, calling himself a “son of a bitch”. Patton uses coarse language to emphasize both the evil of the German Army and the powerfulness of himself and the American Army. Patton was once asked about his use of profanity by his nephew he responded by saying, “When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty... You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity." Patton has an incredible use of language to emphasize his points and it does come off eloquently in an odd way. The audience was used to that kind of language so they were able to look past the profanity and see the true message of the speech. This speech would not have been the same without the profanity.
The goal of Patton’s speech was to achieve identification with his audience and evoke action. Patton achieves identification through nationality, rights of passage, group membership, and most of all language. The audience identified with speaker because he is their leader, they wanted to listen to him. The audience identified with the topic because Patton used the language of the army to talk about war. The audience identified with the situation because they were on the eve of battle, they needed a motivational speech. Some other ways that the audience identified with Patton was through sensory imagery. Patton is mostly visual in his speech, telling stories about battles, but he also mentions food in his speech so that the soldiers use gustatory. Sensory imagery is present when Patton says, “When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it's the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you'll know what to do!" There is Auditory from the shell, Kinetic, thermal, and tactile from wiping off “dirt” that was really blood and guts. Patton used literary imagery as well, he used simile to compare a group of truck drivers to links in a chain. “All of the links in the chain pulled together and the chain became unbreakable.” Alliteration can be found in the first sentence, “this stuff that some sources sling” starts the speech off on the right note of tone color. Repetition is used to intensify Patton’s goal of having a quick war, “The quickest way to get it over with is to go get the bastards who started it. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we can go home.” Patton wanted the war to move quickly to minimize the losses to his army.
This speech is considered one of the most motivational speeches of all time; It was at a crucial point in history, right before America was about to launch the biggest amphibious assault in history. It is a perfect example of how a person can adapt what they say to their audience. This speech can give us a clear view of what The Army was like in World War Two. This speech accomplishes its goals to motivate the men of the Third Army and more than that it gives the audience a glimpse of General Patton’s Life. He completed all of his jobs to the fullest and executed every order. He motivated and got the most out of each soldier he commanded. It was his style of speaking, his credibility, and his audience adaptation that made his speech such a success.
Bibliography
Blumenson, Martin (1972). The Patton Papers: 1885–1940. Houghton Mifflin. pp. 231–234. ISBN 0-395-12706-8.
Decker, Jeffrey W., Logistics and Patton's Third Army: Lessons for Today's Logisticians, March 20, 2003
Hirshson, Stanley P., "Patton: A Genius For War." New York: Harper Collins id=162095. 19 Feb 2002 p.562
Biography of General George S. Patton, Jr. generalpatton.com. Retrieved November 19, 2011. pp. 194–195
The Famous Patton Speech, by Charles M. Province
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