Politics of Rhetoric in Barack Obama’sThe Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming American Dream

Abstract

This research paper is an attempt to explore politics of rhetoric in Barack Obama’sThe Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming American Dream.Obama expresses personal and political visions and also has described how ‘American dream’ in the modern age can be achieved with available resources and skilled manpower of the country. Publishing it as his mouthpiece just before his candidacy for the president of the United States of America in 2006, Obama tries to address the problems of common citizens. The purpose of the research paper is toanalyze rhetorics applied by the writer as a political leader. By examining the text, the researcher has tried to find out the reason why Obama is applying this type of tone. To accomplish this task, the researcher takes theoretical insight primarily from rhetoric related texts. The whole research is focused on use of rhetoric in the political context. In addition, the researcher also analyzes rhetorics in relation to the social, cultural of Obama’s autobiography. Obama’s use of rhetorical language in speech and writings is the main concern of the research paper. Along with this, the attitude of the writer regarding his personal character has also been discussed in the main part of thepaper. Obama makes a departure from the racial politics practiced by most other Afro-American politicians. In short, how Obama as a leader intends to win the sympathy of majority voters of America, is the basic issue of the thesis. Keywords: politics and persuasion, argument, rhetoric, function of language