JFK Inaugural Address - Rhetorical Devices

Metaphor example

"And if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion."

Antimetabole example

"Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

cumulative sentence example

"But neither can two great and powerful groups of nations take comfort from our present course - both sides overburdened by the cost of modern weapons, both rightly alarmed by the steady spread of the deadly atom, yet both racing to alter that uncertain balance of terror that stays the hand of mankind's final war."

oxymoron example

"But this peaceful revolution"

metonymy example

"In your hands, my fellow citizens, more than mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course"

Horative Sentence Example

"Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us."

Allusion example

"Let both sides unite to head in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah"

Alliteration example

"Let us go forth to lend the land we love"

imperative sentence example

"My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."

zeugma example

"Now the trumpet summons us again- not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need- not as a call to battle, though embattled we are- but a call to bear the burden."

periodic sentence example

"To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support."

inversion example

"United there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided there is little we can do."

Juxtaposition example

"We are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth... that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans- born in this century (emphasis added)"

Asyndeton example

"We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Antithesis example

"We shall support any friend, oppose any foe"

rhetorical question example

"Will you join in that historic effort?"

archaic diction example

"beliefs for which our forebears fought"

Anaphora example

"not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need - not as a call to battle, though embattled we are"

personification example

"with history the final judge of our deeds"

Allusion

Brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or fictitious, or to a work of art

metaphor

Figure of speech that says one thing is another in order to explain by comparison

Juxtaposition

Placement of two things closely together to emphasize comparisons or contrasts

Anaphora

Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines

Antimetabole

Repetition of words in reverse order

Metonymy

Using a single feature to represent the whole

Personification

attribution of a lifelike quality to an inanimate object or an idea

rhetorical question

figure of speech in the form of a question posed for rhetorical effect rather than for the purpose of getting an answer

inversion

inverted order of words in a sentence (variation of the subject-verb-object order)

archaic diction

old-fashioned or outdated choice of words

Asyndeton

omission of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words

Antithesis

opposition, or contrast, of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction

oxymoron

paradoxical juxtaposition of words that seem to contradict one another

Alliteration

repetition of the same sound beginning several words in sequence

cumulative sentence

sentence that completes the main idea at the beginning of the sentence and then builds and adds on

horative sentence

sentence that exhorts, advises, calls to action

imperative sentence

sentence used to command, enjoin, implore, or entreat

periodic sentence

sentence whose main clause is withheld until the end

Parallelism

similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses

Zeugma

use of two different words in a grammatically similar way that produces different, often incongruous, meanings