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Five MaAm, By Michelle Obama

Decent Essays

You’re on in five Ma’am,” the chairman of the Democratic National Committee whispers, covertly to the well-dressed woman quietly sitting next to him. The occupant grimly nods her careworn features, the embodiment of disinterest; Her mind, a grey mist that obscure her innermost thoughts like a sweeping, sullen, shroud. Michelle Obama, the senator’s wife would soon be known as Michelle Obama, the orator. The thought of delivering a requiem for her husband’s political career elicits such cynical mirth that would shame Voltaire’s quips. Fortitude, that ironclad citadel is steadily eroded by the waves of backrooming politicking directly dismantling the foundations of trust; truly she is as a frightened lamb that finds itself surrounded by a …show more content…

Anecdotes provide emphasis and familiarity through a consistent narrative; Michelle Obama utilizes examples of her background to create a link between orator and audience. Obama’s humble background presents the picture of a blue collared father struggling to make ends meet while providing for his children. As the prominent fixture in her childhood, her father is “the rock” (Obama, line 54) that grounded her in society. The proletariat audience naturally sympathizes, but Mrs. Obama’s rhetorical fusilade now turns its attention to her husband’s past. The candidate himself is indirectly the subject of several anecdotes; Paragraph sixteen details Barack Obama socialist worldview as being the culmination of generations of civil rights. This particular analogy serves the dual purpose of legitimacy paired with vision. True, the young Illinois senator possesses the dynamism of Martin Luther King Jr. along with a forward looking vision. Examples of the aspiring politician’s magnanimity appear in paragraphs twenty and twenty one are lauded: “It’s what did on the streets of Chicago setting up job training and after school programs to keep children safe” (Obama lines 70-72). Intentional or not, the inclusion of anecdotal evidence as a rhetorical tool crafts an image of Barack Obama as the “people’s hero.”
The audience finds itself further beguiled by the

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