Tionne Chambers

President Obama’s Use of Pathos in His Tuscan Shooting Memorial Speech

      Speech is the expression or the ability to express thoughts and feelings by articulate sounds. Rhetoric is a useful strategy to utilize in speech making. President Obama used rhetorical appeals in presenting his message to his audience by showing sympathy and compassion.

      President Obama’s memorial speech following the Tuscan shooting on January 8, 2011 he carefully used the Aristotelian appeal of pathos through his word choice, which drew his audience together based on shared ideas. In President Obama’s opening lines, he showed his compassion for the victims of the shouting stating: “I have come here tonight as an American who, like all Americans kneels to pray with you today, and will stand by you tomorrow. These words allowed Obama to align himself with the American people, showing empathy and comforting the people by saying “I will be here for you”. This allowed him to form a connection with his audience, which he further supported with the term “we” when addressing the American population: “We mourn with you for the fallen”. “We join with you in your grief”. He also drew parallels between the nations mourning following the shouting and, the mourning that comes with losing a family member. Here he is implying that all Americans are a family and by using the collective term, “we” which conveys that he is too.

    With this word choice, not only has President Obama effectively conveyed to his audience that he is one of them – just another member of the family- but he has also managed to place himself in something of a father figure. By placing himself in this role, he creates the impression that as the father figure he is also in a position to give advice and serve as an educator. President Obama then goes on to calm and ensure his nation that questioning and reflecting is natural, by stating, “When a tragedy like this strikes, it is a part of our nature to demand explanations -to try to impose some order on the chaos, and make sense out of what seems senseless”. By telling each victim’s story, President Obama further obtains an emotional response from the audience by effectively humanizing each person. This creates a sense of unity, making it seems as if he really knew the victims, and making each person more relatable to the audience so that each member of the audience might feel as though any one of the victims could have been their neighbor or a loved one.

     He used religious enforces multiple times in his speech, referring to Scripture both as a source of consultation and comfort. By referring to the Bible Scripture, he was able to connect better with the families of the victims, as many of the victims was described as being religious.  Knowing that the Republican Party often incorporates Christian values into policies, President Obama also uses religion to bridge the gap between the republican and democratic members of the audience by taking into consideration conservative values. While using quotes that were widely accessible, as both of the references he used were taken from the Old Testament, which is a point of reference for all Judeo-Christian religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) thereby facilitating the acceptance of his points in a very diverse audience. Furthermore, an important message in the book of Job, which Obama specifically referenced, is that God may put his people through trial, but there is always a bigger meaning behind the evils in the world, and evil should never make you doubt your belief.

      Overall, Obama’s speech more than achieved its purpose. It manages to unite the American people—an audience with a vast array of differences— in a time of suffering and makes not only the victims of the tragic event easy to relate to but creates a sense of trust and familiarity with Obama himself, casting him in a positive light as a capable and understanding president.