In his speech and article, John Hages is trying to persuade the target audience of taking reality as it is. He does it with a great example that is the movie “Matrix”, where the computer programmer chooses between the red (reality) and the blue pill (the world of dreams). In the speaker’s opinion, all people should make this choice, and realize all threatens as soon as it possible.
The speaker is a missioner who helps poor people in the name of God. He travelled all around the world, and he has seen many things, especially that in many countries people are suffering. He gives an example about the statistical data that show that even in the USA, in the so called “land of opportunity”, the number of poor people continue to rise. This is so called “red pill”, in his opinion.
Possibly, the target audience for John Hages is students or professors in one of the Christian universities, and maybe this speech is the part of his lecture. He mentions that he was a former businessman who left his business to support other people (possibly when he earned a good amount of money). For him it was easier to start working as a missioner than for those who did not have nothing at all, in my opinion. He tells: “In my visits to prominent Christian universities, faculty members have expressed concern that their campuses graduate increasingly fewer men and women into full-time mission, here or abroad.” It is the main clue from the text to understand the target audience of this speech.
John Hages is very good in persuasion. He uses many types of stylistically devices and expressive means to reach every member of audience very close to heart. For example, he talks about “blue” and “red” pills from the most famous modern movie, and makes everyone thinking and imagine the situation from movie bringing it very close to reality.
He uses a few famous types of persuasion that are often common to rhetoric. For example, the speaker uses ethos (credibility), as he is a famous missioner who left his business to serve other people abroad. Then John Hages uses pathos (emotional context) appealing to the emotions of audience. For example, he tells statistics about poor people in the United States of America and expects the audience to feel pity for these people who cannot lead normal life even in the so called country of opportunities. The speaker also uses logos to prove his point of view, and he appeals to what many people know very well. For example, the movie “Matrix” is a product of good modern art, not only the simple movie. The speaker encourages the audience to think deeper when drawing parallels with this famous movie. This appeal to logics is very clear as he knows exactly that many people all around the globe saw this movie and were possibly inspired by it.
This speech seems to be very effective, and it has a good logical structure, emotionally colored. Even when reading these excerpts, there is feeling that John Hages will reach his goal in any case, and he will persuade the audience finally. Many key points in the text prove this. Effective using of statistics, appealing to emotions and real facts create the image of America as only the name of land of equal opportunities. In any case, the goal of speech will be reached.
References
Hages, John. Sub-Merge. Ventura. Regal, 2006. Print
