Rhetorical Analysis of Swami Vivekananda’s Speech

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Columbian Exhibition of 1893 in Chicago was the first attempt of global religious leaders to unlock and disclose the truth about all beliefs across the globe and first effort to reinforce the humans’ attitude to the values of each religion in particular. One Indian monk, without a coin in his pockets, intentionally left his motherland and visited American assembly in order to participate in the parliamentary meeting. It was Swami Vivekananda who made an outstanding and impressive speech on behalf of entire Hinduism. He called for humanism and tolerance, and his magnificent sentences sounded like the blessing magic spell for numerous listeners. The perfect proficiency in English, deeply sounded voice, respectful behavior that was full of diligence, and appropriate highly-cultured rhetoric techniques like metaphors, parallelism, simile, and various pronouns made an indelible impression on the numerous human minds of those times.

First, it is important to underline the rhetorical introduction of Swami Vivekananda. Indeed, Hindu monk surprised and quite shocked a lot of attendants on the meeting with non-standard intro: “Sisters and Brothers of America” (1). There was no addressing to Mrs. or Ms., as well as he did not start his speech with standard cliché ‘ladies and gentlemen’. Practically, Swami used powerful metaphoric approach to show the great respect to everyone at the meeting. It was absolutely unexpected and successful psychological step from foreigner who visited the United States of America. With a help of such metaphor Swami Vivekananda just equated every human regardless of his gender or race to very close personalities. In fact, it was a vision of Hindu philosophy to consider every individual as own brother and sister...

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...hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honor of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism” (2). It is almost flawless metaphoric technique that personifies so-called “exorcism” – the deliverance from demons – because church bells send all evil forces away. That is why his last culmination paragraph made an enormous effect on the crowd.

The speech of Swami Vivekananda in Chicago Parliament brought the light into the souls of numerous people and, unsurprisingly, his words inspired numerous followers to actions. Indeed, the correct and respectful principles of Hindu philosophy and incredible manipulation of sincere and optimistic phrases, epithets and rhetorical approaches demonstrated the perfect example of laconic and concise oratory in front of the numerous listeners.

Works Cited

Swami Vivekananda. Sisters and Brothers of America, 1893.

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