Ich bin ein Berliner Speech: Analysis

Ich bin ein Berliner Speech: Analysis

Symbols, Motifs, and Rhetorical Devices

Rhetoric

PathosKennedy made people have all the feels. He's tugging at the heartstrings of the audience throughout his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech. The guy is laying on the pathos with a trowel.His is not...

Structure

When you're the president people expect you to give a lot of speeches. You basically can't walk into a room without people shoving a microphone in front of your face and asking you speak about the...

What's Up With the Title?

There isn't one. Okay, but only sort of. The speech was just named after the place where it was delivered, either "Remarks at the Rudolph Wilde Platz" or "Speech from the Rathaus Schöneberg." The...

What's Up With the Opening Lines?

We're gonna go out on a limb here and say that the first two sentences where President Kennedy talks about who he's proud to be standing around Berlin with shouldn't be considered the opening lines...

What's Up With the Closing Lines?

The last few sentences are when Kennedy gets philosophical and energizes the crowd one last time. He wants to inspire change without actually promising to change anything. He isn't talking specific...

Tough-o-Meter

(2) Sea Level Sure, President K slips in a few foreign phrases, but overall this is an easy read. After all, he was giving this speech to an audience where most of the people only knew English as t...

Shout-Outs

In-Text ReferencesLiterary and Philosophical ReferencesCivis Romaus Sum appears in Cicero's In Verrem (3)Historical and Political ReferencesThe Mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt (1, 18)The Chancel...

Trivia

More than 100 people died trying to cross the Berlin Wall, but over 5,000 people escaped over or under the wall into West Germany. (Source)The Berlin Wall was 96 miles long, with 27 of those miles...