Pendatic Crticism

Aguilera 1 Princesleah Aguilera ENGW 2325.01 Dr. Mary Rist 3 November 2016 Pentadic Criticism: “The Audacity of Hope”

I.

Introduction

On July 27, 2004 Illinois Senator Barack Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts. He delivered the address in support of the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Senator Obama told a story through his “Audacity of Hope” speech and helped Kerry’s campaign in 2004.

I will be using the pentadic criticism introduced by Kenneth Burke in Sonja K. Foss’s Rhetorical Criticism and its elements: the act, agent, agency, purpose, and scene to analyze the reason how and why Senator Barack Obama used the rhetoric and what affect it made on his audience at the Democratic National Convention. This method of criticism allowed me to play each element from the speech to see which would have influenced the voters the most from the story he told in his “Audacity of Hope” speech and why he would have told this story rather than a different one.

II.

Description of the artifact and its context

Senator Barack Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Obama presented a story of his grandfather and other family members before him that gave him the possibility of living the American dream that they had wished to achieve in their lifetime. In his keynote address, he appealed to the audience that would make the decision of electing John Kerry. John Kerry’s reason for choosing Obama to deliver the speech was to attract the colored votes. His predicting polls had foreseen him lacking the colored vote, specifically with black people.

Obama introduces his parents’ story and how they worked as hard as they did to give him the story that he has now. He addressed the people of the Democratic party so that they understood why John Kerry was the right person for the job through empathy and I think that was his main concern as how to address the Democratic National Convention. He wanted how he addressed to play into the purpose for Kerry and to get the Democratic party riled for a view of America that wasn’t showcased enough at this point in history. The speech accomplished this because the minorities in America were losing some of their hope in the political system and they needed somebody to show them how it made him successful and he turned out perfectly okay.

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III.

Description of method of criticism

The pentadic criticism is for us to see how the rhetor is using each element of the pentad, rhetoric, and what effect he is making on the audience that he is targeting. This method of criticism allowed me to conclude why Obama wrote his address and used the language that he did toward this specific audience of people. Pentadic methods are especially useful with this task because of how the reader is taking apart the artifact and when finding out the act, agent, agency, purpose and scene of it, they are figuring out exactly what put, in my case, the address together and receive the message that the rhetor was desiring to present through it. As Foss derived from Burke’s concept in a Rhetorical Criticism, “It is a method that seeks to answer the questions, what is involved, when we say what people are and why they are doing it?” (355). Explaining that this type of criticism, put into simpler words, is what a reader would use primarily if they wanted to know the reason behind why the retor used the language the way they did which is why I used it with the artifact.

IV.

Analysis

In this address, president Obama is mainly working toward how he could present his story that would get him the voters that John Kerry needs on his side. His main position and goal in the speech is to be able to relate to the American public attending the Democratic National Convention.

He is portraying his family and their American story a certain way within the speech in order to gain the voters. The main element that is being utilized in “The Audacity of Hope” speech is the scene.

Act: Struggle and hard work as foreigners and immigrants.

Agent: His father, Barack Obama Sr., his mother, Ann Dunham and his grandparents.

Agency: Barack Obama’s predecessors had to struggle and work hard.

Purpose: To give Barack and his siblings a chance at an American dream.

Scene: The story was held during Obama’s youth, but he also refers to it as John Kerry’s America.

The scene gave more power to the fact that he was surrounded by democrats and had a story that most democratic Americans has. They had also viewed what is being described by Obama’s ancestor’s as “… A magical place, America: that is shown as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before him.” The scene allowed an achieved a version of the American dream to help him gain the support of so many voters who attended the Democratic National Convention. The scene of the story allowed him to go back in time and show what hope people had even then of America. These hopes and dreams of a place like this drove Obama to write the story that he did for that reason. He wanted to convince his audience of a hopeful America that his

Aguilera 3 candidate could contribute to by recognizing, “In this election, we offer that choice. Our party has chosen a man to lead us who embodies the best this country has to offer and that man is John Kerry” (“An Audacity of Hope”).

The rest of the elements were listed as these because of how they worked within the speech. The act of the essay, what the agent did, was provide Obama and his siblings with their chance at the American dream because that’s what Obama is highlighting in his speech. It works as the agent in order to show what the agent had to do to achieve the purpose. The agent(s) of the story did end up being Barack Obama’s ancestors. They were who had gone through transferring to the United State in Kenya, working in assembly lines, and being a cook in Kenya to provide for schooling to achieve school in the United States, signing up for duty in Pearl Harbor they did the act of working to provide the Obama’s with the American dream. The agency goes hand in hand with the act, being the hard work that was put into gaining their American opportunity. The purpose, finally is what also drove more of the elements as well. The reason that the agents had to do the act the way that they did is one of the most important elements in most pentad criticisms. Giving Barack Obama and his siblings hope and a dream was one of the main reason that this pentad was so strong.

Although the scene did give a strong message of what exactly they were working for, especially at a time where foreigners weren’t believed in yet. The scene gave the act the substance that it needed to work in his speech.

The fact that Obama chose this story to tell especially at this point in time gave foreigners and immigrants a chance to see an America that John Kerry could provide. Obama gave a story with the powerful American dream message that had apparently successfully blossomed which allowed John Kerry to flourish, although he did lose the presidential race in 2004. Obama gave us The Audacity of Hope.

V.

Conclusion

The reason for the criticism of this address is to ascertain why it was the speech that put Obama on the map in the 2008 presidential election. At this point in time, an African American president had yet to exist. Why did it take this kind of speech to make a minority a viable candidate for president?

The public has not considered Obama as any kind of choice in the election that followed. However, with this speech Obama began his campaigning grounds for the 2008 presidential election. With this speech, Obama showed America what he was campaigning for and what ideals he would bring with him to the White House. His speech gave him the publicity and the platform that minorities would elect in the 2008 election. He showed the American public that he was a worthy candidate for the American presidency for the 2008 election. He was a person that the public could relate to and that the public could root for as an underdog, but he also wanted to run for president. The whole reason to actually Barack Obama’s keynote address was to get John Kerry elected as president, but instead got him noticed to be able to run for president. Barack Obama was telling this story in order to show people what aspects he saw in America and how his story played such a huge role in his

Aguilera 4 American dream. The climax of his speech allowed for him to showcase what he meant of John Kerry’s Version of America by declaring, “There is not a liberal America. There is not a conservative America. There is a UNITED States of America” (“The Audacity of Hope”)

Aguilera 5 Works Cited Foss, Sonja K. Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration & Practice. 4th ed. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland, 1989. Print. Pg. 355-371 Obama, Barack H. "The Audacity of Hope." Democratic National Convention. Massachusetts, Boston. 27 July 2004. Address.