I expected to be confused when I walked into the lecture room to listen to Kevin O’Neil speak about rhetoric, theories and their origins. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised that I understood and was able to follow what he was saying. He was extremely charismatic and he proved that if you know how to relate to your audience, you will make a bigger impression. Between his different accents, pitches, and references I couldn’t help but listen and be intrigued. It was great that he gave us a brief history of what type of people the greeks were. I should have guessed, but never knew just how much weight they put on speech. Its actually very impressive. It really helped to have someone put into clearer terms the ideas that we had previously read. I walked out feeling a little bit more comfortable with the theories jargon.
The clip from “Wall Street” was a great example how the things talked about in the lecture are applied. What made Gordon Ghekko’s speech so convincing was his use of rhetoric compared to the man before him. He made himself part of the crowd like he was “just like them.” He made certain not to seem of a different caliber so that the people would trust him. He points fingers at the shareholders even though he is the biggest shareholder. Looking at movies or even the news you can see how rhetoric is used to encourage, persuade, and manipulate people. I think that the use of good rhetoric is a very powerful tool as seen in your example of “Wall Street.”
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