Ronald Wilson Reagan

"The Evil Empire"

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ronaldreaganevilempire.htm

            Reagan’s speech here seems to draw on pathos and ethos. He creates ethos by making himself seem more approachable and humble, though his various critiques of politicians vs. holy men, thus making himself more relatable. Furthermore, he also unifies the crowd through his relations to Christianity, as well as through fear of a common foe.

            He seems to use peoples ‘ feelings towards Christianity to get them fired up, then segways into playing on their fears by relating everything back to the cold war, thus using the peoples’ fear to make his message and persona more potent.

Dane Cook- Atheists

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWZ59qIwXGY&feature=related

          I find that this particular piece by Dane Cook is a perfect example of how one can use their physical body and surroundings to enhance the effectiveness of their rhetoric. No doubt, he also displays great kairos among other rhetorical vehicles, although I feel that his brand of comedy (often involving long stories) would not work as well if it were not for all of his exaggerated facial and body movements. Prime examples being; his descriptions of the atheist as a tree, the lumberjack and the peppermill, all of which likely would not have been as funny had he not incorporated his exaggerated body movements.

Nick Naylor Pitches 'Smoking is Cool'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdbldsnSxE

            In this speech Naylor is trying to convince board members that they need to increase product placement in movies in order to increase the amount of young people buying their product. He appears to draw on equal parts logos and pathos during his pitch.

            The logos appears in the form of a logical argument linking the advent of motion pictures, and actors subsequently smoking in those pictures, with the monumental rise in smoking between 1910 and the 1930’s.

            The pathos comes into effect when Naylor uses a specific scene from the 1944 movie “To Nave and Have Not” involving Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Becall. According to Naylor, this scene sparks the “greatest romance of the century”, this comparison obviously serving the purpose of sparking an emotional response from his audience. Furthermore, the scene’s sexiness is arguably contingent upon the fact that Becall is smoking (she asks for a light after-all), therefore in turn, making the act of smoking itself sexier.

Richard Milhous Nixon

"Checkers"

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/richardnixoncheckers.html

            While I usually enjoy Nixon speeches, this one seems to fall short. Although he obviously tries to make an appeal to pathos, by “apologizing”, but the whole speech just seems to be forced. More specifically, it appears that he is reading the speech from cucards and or a teleprompter for the very first time, as evidenced by the terrible kairos he shows with so many awkward pauses and intonations throughout

Martin Luther King, Jr

"I've Been to the Mountaintop"

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm

            Although this particular speech by Martin Luther King Jr. is extremely deep rhetorically, I would like to focus upon the effectiveness of his kairos, specifically his pacing. The pacing of the speech begins almost melodically as he recounts various stages of history, but becomes more intense the further he goes into the speech. This form of pacing is pretty typical of preachers, in that it evokes emotional responses from the audience as they inevitably get caught up in the ups and downs of the pacing.