Speeches - Margret Atwood, Paul Keating
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 02/15/2010 09:53 PM
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Great speeches have a clear and focussed purpose with an understanding of the anticipated response of their audience.
Great speeches have a clear and focussed purpose with an understanding of the audience’s response, while also encompassing rhetoric elements to engage, inform and evoke emotions from the audience. The effectiveness of a speech is usually a reflection of its structure or craft. Margaret Atwood’s “Spotty-handed Villainesses” and Paul Keating’s “Funeral Service Of The Unknown Australian Soldier” although structured differently, are crafted as such that their purpose is clear and focussed and they engage their audience effectively.
Paul Keating’s “Funeral Service Of The Unknown Australian Soldier” was given on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1993. Not only significant as the 75th anniversary of the 1918 armistice, it was also the date of the entombment of the remains of an unknown soldier from the Western Front at an Australian War Memorial shrine in Canberra. As the speech was a eulogy and its content sensitive to thousands across Australia and the world, Keating needed to employ delicacy and tact in delivering it. He centres his speech around the themes of war, peace, patriotism and remembrance. As an official Australian representative he promotes these themes via the idea that it is the ordinary people, and in turn this Unknown Australian Soldier, that are the heroes of war. He emphasises that the lesson learned from war is “that they were not ordinary”.
Keating uses various techniques to connect and engage with his audience, while still keeping a strong voice in promoting his opinion and purpose. His most frequented technique is the use of inclusive language, the use of “we”. This technique, consistent throughout the speech, unites the audience and aids Keating in his purpose of embracing Australian identity and values. The strong personal voice and compassion created helps the audience to connect with Keating and the symbolic nature of the...
Great speeches have a clear and focussed purpose with an understanding of the audience’s response, while also encompassing rhetoric elements to engage, inform and evoke emotions from the audience. The effectiveness of a speech is usually a reflection of its structure or craft. Margaret Atwood’s “Spotty-handed Villainesses” and Paul Keating’s “Funeral Service Of The Unknown Australian Soldier” although structured differently, are crafted as such that their purpose is clear and focussed and they engage their audience effectively.
Paul Keating’s “Funeral Service Of The Unknown Australian Soldier” was given on Armistice Day, November 11th, 1993. Not only significant as the 75th anniversary of the 1918 armistice, it was also the date of the entombment of the remains of an unknown soldier from the Western Front at an Australian War Memorial shrine in Canberra. As the speech was a eulogy and its content sensitive to thousands across Australia and the world, Keating needed to employ delicacy and tact in delivering it. He centres his speech around the themes of war, peace, patriotism and remembrance. As an official Australian representative he promotes these themes via the idea that it is the ordinary people, and in turn this Unknown Australian Soldier, that are the heroes of war. He emphasises that the lesson learned from war is “that they were not ordinary”.
Keating uses various techniques to connect and engage with his audience, while still keeping a strong voice in promoting his opinion and purpose. His most frequented technique is the use of inclusive language, the use of “we”. This technique, consistent throughout the speech, unites the audience and aids Keating in his purpose of embracing Australian identity and values. The strong personal voice and compassion created helps the audience to connect with Keating and the symbolic nature of the...