Kennedy's West Berlin Speech Research Paper

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Kennedy West Berlin: Ethos, Pathos and Logos

Introduction

Ethos, pathos and logos are rhetorical modes of persuasion. Ethos appeals to the ethics of listener by reflecting the character of the speaker. Pathos appeals to the emotions. And logos appeals to reason or logic (Sproat, Driscoll & Brizee, 2012). Kennedy employed all three modes of rhetoric in his famous West Berlin speech in 1963, when he highlighted the inhumanity of the Wall, the oppression of the Germans under the Soviet system, and the meaning of freedom, as well as in many other ways. This paper will examine these ways to show how Kennedy applied these rhetorical devices in his West Berlin speech in 1963.

Ethos

The appeal to ethics through the reflection of his own character was made by Kennedy when he began making the distinction between right and wrong in his speech. He did it not by identifying specifically what was good and what was bad but rather by intimation and suggestion. For example, he began his speech by framing the issue, the problem, the conflict between “the free world and the Communist world” (Kennedy, 1963) by stating: “There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world” (Kennedy, 1963). His answer? “Let them come to Berlin” (Kennedy, 1963). He phrased the issue in this manner, subtly suggesting the problem without ever coming out and stating it clearly himself, instead letting others and their questions serve as the instruments for highlighting the ethical reason for why the Soviets were wrong in Berlin and wrong in fact in their whole way of thinking: “There are some who say that communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin. And there are some who say in Europe and elsewhere we can work with the Communists. Let them come to Berlin.” By simply telling his audience to come and see for itself how well the West could work with the Soviets, he was saying, “Don’t listen to me, come and see for yourself how impossible it is to get along with the Communists: they built a Wall between us and them—they do not want peace.

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They are different! They want to control everything under them in their own way, whereas we are free!” This was what Kennedy was saying between the lines: “And there are even a few who say that it is true that communism is an evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress. Lass' sie nach Berlin kommen. Let them come to Berlin” (Kennedy, 1963). In other words, Communism was not a means to an end any more than it was a good system: it was neither. Kennedy thus lays out the ethical appeal in his speech right at the outset, using the complaints of others as a way to frame the ethical reasons for why the U.S. must stand with West Berlin.

Pathos

The appeal to the emotions comes by way of Kennedy’s frequent allusion to the wall as a symbol of separation and inhumanity, in the identification of the suffering of the people of Berlin, and in the idea that the Communist system is “an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together” (Kennedy, 1963). Kennedy thus appeals to the idea that Communism destroys families. He appeals to the good feelings that the idea of family naturally produces in the minds of people and then associates this concept of family with the brutality of Communism which is bent on destroying families and keeping them apart. He appeals to the pride of the people in West Berlin for staying so brave….....

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