Rhetorical Analysis of “But the Blind Can Lead the Blind” Speech (Essay Example)

Vera Jones, a woman of many talents; an Author, Award-Winning Broadcaster, Hall-of-Fame Scholar-Athlete, and most importantly, a passionate mother, writes a motivational speech (“But the Blind Can Lead the Blind”) to grow great emphasis on the belief that life is worth pushing forward. Jones does this by a number of strategies; An analogy of life to sports, an anecdote on her family, a heart-breaking moment of fear and sadness with her son, a path of light through her dark times and, as a bow on top, a message directly towards the audience. Jones’ purpose is to guide the audience through their current struggles and prove an example of pushing forward. 

Jones begins with a strategy that is well known by everyone with appreciation for literary structure: An analogy. As analogies go, they’re used as a guide to simplify a concept to the audience. In Jones’ case, she uses her love of basketball to set the scene of life. Within these quotes, “In this game of life, everybody gets fouls.”and “Alternately, fouls will turn your life upside down.” We find that the concept of life and struggles are broken down into the concept of basketball and fouls. What this does for the audience is continuously remind us how there is a foul in almost every game of basketball and every person’s life. Jones includes this aid for the audience to allude to her belief of pushing forward through life’s struggles. If there were no fouls, there would be no basketball to play. Without struggles in life, there would be no life to live. 

As the speech goes on, Jones includes an anecdote about her family and a passage on her son’s heart-breaking adversity. The anecdote begins with an introduction to who is in her family, mentioning her son Andrew. Jones explains that two months after Andrew has turned 12, he experiences something very rare. As he was spending his day as a normal kid when he loses his vision and flips over an electrical box. Jones doesn’t plainly explain this, in fact she does the direct opposite. She uses his direct quotes to drive feeling into the audience, using the method of Pathos. “Mom! Mom! I was outside and Noah, he went to throw the pass, and I went to catch it, and then everything got dark, and I didn’t see the electrical box and I flipped over it, right there in the middle of the lawn…” This particular sentence is stretched, there aren’t any full stops yet continuous commas, extending the sentence. Jones incites urgency into the audience by doing this, showing the fear in her son’s heart. As intelligent and successful Jones was in the use of this emotional tactic, she connects this to her previous analogy, showing a life “foul’. 

To finalize the speech, Jones directly approaches the audience. Acknowledging the audience after pulling them in with a saddening tale makes the audience more aware of the message trying to be pushed across. Jones’ last few paragraphs detail lesions, she numbers them in order from one to seven. Every paragraph is marked with the word “You”, what this does is create a sense that Jones isn’t telling a story, but is talking at the audience. Once the audience is captured by her words, captured by the fact that she is addressing them, she motivates and uses her words to create a feeling of wanting to get through the toughness of life. “Transformation doesn’t just happen. It takes a plan and a support system. This how-to guide is full of the top wisdom, tips, exercises and success stories to inspire an old dream or create a new one.”, Jones ends with. 

As a conclusive analysis, Author Vera Jones wrote this speech to create an emphasis on her belief that life is worth pushing forward. Jones’ uses of the analogies, anecdotes and adressment of the audience, motivate and construed a sense of normalcy in harsh climates for the audience. Each of these strategies exhibit new ways to look at struggles and new ways to overcome them. As stated before, intelligent and successful Jones’ tactics are, they effectively convey her purpose. Taking in account the bravery Vera Jones has to share such an experience and the experience she has in other industries, an analysis on her rhetorical strategies barely makes a mark on her character as her previous societal marks are astounding.