Michelle Obama Ethos Pathos Logos

Words: 1125
Pages: 5

Imagine someone who is hardworking and persevering no matter what life throws at them. Now imagine someone who is trustworthy, fair, and looks out for other’s best interests. Lastly, imagine someone who is highly respected and parents would want to be a role model for their child(ren). To Michelle Obama, and everyone else hopefully, this balance of qualities makes a great president and leader of the country. Being first lady for the past eight years, Mrs. Obama values the future of the United States of America. In fact, she cared so much that she gave a speech at the DNC (Democratic National Convention) in October of 2016 to sway the country in a direction of growth and flourishing. The direction she wanted to lead the country’s people involved the election of Hillary Clinton as President, and her strategy of persuasion included ethos, logos, and pathos. Mrs. Obama evenly spread ethos, logos, and pathos through her speech in an infallible way.
To begin, Mrs. Obama used ethos to let her audience know she is a reliable source to give this speech. “Ethos” is translated as “credibility” or “trustworthiness” (Aristotle’s Rhetorical Situations). She spent the first 2-3 minutes speaking from her own experience about one of the
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Not only did she refrain from speaking negatively about him; she did not make out Hillary Clinton to be a hero nor did she relate her character/actions to any “glittering generalities”. She didn’t compare herself to her audience, make false analogies, or attack anyone in her speech. She validated her reliability and self-proclaimed motto, “When they go low, we go high,” by choosing to rise above the easy temptation to tell her audience of all the wrong things Hillary Clinton’s runner-up had