Rhetorical Analysis Of George W. Bush's 9/11 Speech

43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, in his speech, 9/11 address to the nation. Bush’s purpose is to inform U.S. citizens of what happened during the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, and how the U.S. government will respond. Bush creates an emotional tone in order to appeal to the emotions of the U.S. citizens to unify them and to provide a feeling of hope and security. Bush begins his address to the nation by acknowledging that the terrorist attack has caused a lot of misery and destruction. One main device Bush adopts a few times in his speech is ellipsis, the deliberate omission of a word or of words that are readily implied by the context and must be supplied by the reader or listener. The first way Bush
uses ellipsis is by bringing the horrifying acts of terror to life with imagery: "The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing have filled us with disbelief..." (par. 2). In this sentence, "pictures" is used to describe "fires burning" and "huge structures collapsing" without repeating "pictures of" after each comma; it is simply implied. A second way President Bush uses ellipsis in this speech is to describe the initial response of Americans after the deadly attacks: "And we responded with the best of America, with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could," (par. 4). In this statement, Bush is explaining how Americans responded to the attacks, without saying "responded" each time. "We responded" is implied to describe "with the daring of our rescue workers" and "with the caring for strangers and neighbors..." without actually being repeated.