RD for Ethical Analysis

Friedman correctly borrows President Obama who is at the highest position of the entire country in his article. Definitely, the character he creates in the text is effective to his reader. The rhetor is intelligent enough due to his achievement. He knows President Obama very well, even his background. “Finally, I will accept this award on behalf of my grandfather, Stanley Dunham, who arrived at Normandy six weeks after D-Day, and on behalf of my great-uncle, Charlie Payne, who was among those soldiers who liberated part of the Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald.” (Friedman 2) However, his persuasiveness cannot step further without President Obama. The examples he talks about are not the rhetor’s after all. The president of the United States is more famous and well-informed, which means it turns out to be easy to establish the credibility since the character has been created in the article.

The article is a speech, so Friedman uses large scale of first person in it, which is also the key to success of his work. Because of “I” he frequently uses in text, there is less distance between the rhetor and his audience. This situation is easy to be accessed. He is inviting all the audience to listen to his points of view directly. Another reason is the rhetor uses present tense throughout the article, which gives an audience a sense of participation in the event. The feeling is like all the audience are joining the ceremony, and President Obama is giving his speech not far from them. Meanwhile, Friedman properly uses the tone of President Obama when he is giving a speech. In other words, he better combines the issue of President Obama receives the peace prize with the points of view he wants to states throughout the article.

The strategy of writing the article is listing objective examples. The advantage of which is the reader is easily respond to the author. Friedman states almost all the major wars that America has been involved over the century. It is true that America can be the only country, which launched the most wars all over the world. It not only fought against Nazi fascism, Japanese tyranny and Communist dictatorship in the past, but also it is fighting against totalitarianism and terrorism in some middle-east countries nowadays. What reality has been brought after those wars? “…women and girls, a chance to live a decent life free from the Taliban’s religious totalitarianism.” (Friedman 1) These are the facts that we cannot deny. Life is changed, particularly, after the most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Apparently, the speech is objective even though the rhetor uses first person in it. The structure of each paragraph, for example, is almost the same. The speech is divided into thirteen paragraphs, and each of their first sentences is “I will accept this award on behalf of the American soldiers…” For the purpose of emphasis, it clearly states that the peace prize is the award for those American soldiers who fight for justice and freedom on battlefields from the past to the present. The character Friedman creates does not have the power over his reader, even though he is President Obama. He wishes to make his work objective so that his readers would not feel like they are pushed to believe his points of view in the article.