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To What Extent Has Your Personal Response to the Speeches Been Shaped by the Enduring Power of Their Intellectual & Artistic Qualities? an Exploration of the Speeches “Faith Hope and Reconciliation” by Faith Bandler

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I have selected two speeches both of which I felt were written to connect with their audience and be persuasive. The first speech by indigenous Australian rights activist Faith Bandler, is aptly named “Faith, Hope and Reconciliation” 1999, the second speech is “Funeral Service of the Unknown Australian Soldier” presented by the honorable Paul Keating, 1993. In the following case study I will be exploring and reviewing and evaluating the intellectual and artistic qualities of these two speeches, with reference also to Sir William Deane’s speech on the canyoning tragedy of 1999.

The point of any speech is to connect with an audience (and persuade them) on a far deeper level than any written form can provide. That connection may be through …show more content…

Something that is evident in both Keating and Bandler’s speeches, and almost all the prescribed speeches is the process in which they speaker intentionally connects with the audience by making either themselves or their topic personable.

In “Funeral Service of the Unknown Australian Soldier”, Keating begins his speech using anaphora in the first paragraph with the repetition of the phrase “we do not know...”. By telling us all the things that we do not know, Keating causes us to think about the possibilities of this soldiers life being not so dissimilar from our own. In this he becomes personalised to us; more real and human and we feel empathy for this unknown Australian.

All these human traits, family, religion, loved ones, employment, things that every person has in common whether rich or poor or important or over looked, these are the things we relate to and that Keating uses, to make us consider the more human aspect of war.Although we do not know the specifics and the details of this man’s life, he is an Australian and we feel a connection to him.

Keating's speech addresses the changing attitudes to war and to the Anzac legend. When he states: ‘ this Australia and the Australia he knew are like foreign countries’ he is using contrast to show us exactly how much has changed.
In 1993, the reasons for which Australians chose to go to war and serve their country were completely different from those

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