Nelson Mandela Inauguration Speech Essay

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela is a man who changed the views in south africa, coming from mvezo a small village in south africa he was bound to change the peoples perspectives with his own. Born on the 18th of july 1918, Nelson Mandela created a whole new change for south africa during his life. He was a very inspirational person on many people and to this day he still is remembered for his past actions and wise words. On his inauguration day he gave a powerful speech which created a sense of hope for the South African people, which will be the extract that will be analysed with further depth, to show how it’s purpose, tone and other factors can create a powerful and impacting speech towards people.

Nelson Mandela’s Inauguration speech was written for the 10th of may 1994. It’s purpose is to inspire and give hope to the south african people, that there will be a drastic change in their country. Although this seems like a big purpose it refines the changes that their country will need to improve itself and become more developed. Mandela’s biggest hope is national unity, which is mentioned in the extract as: “the new interim government of national unity.” This initially means until Mandela’s government is done the changes will be permanent. It’s target audience is democratic politician supporters as well as people who want change.

Nelson Mandela is about how South Africa has been freed from oppression, how there will be more steps in the future to liberate the country from all of the injustices of the country and finally how dreams will become reality. “Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world” This quote indicates a strong statement with a slight metaphor, indicating the South African people that they will never go back to being the ‘skunk’ of the world, which in this case seems to indicate that South Africa used to be a vermin to the world but now they had a hope for a better future. This seems to be one of the main Ideas of the speech. Mandela’s purpose seems to be to remove all the ‘evil’ that was created in his country, from discrimination to diseases such as Cancer, he conveys this hope throughout his speech using strong nouns make his point as clear as possible but put enough emotion into it to create a sense of aspiration into his people. “We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discriminations.” Although his main goal is for equality throughout South Africa between everyone.

This extract emphasises liberation, hope, equality and many other emotions throughout the speech. The use of nouns, anaphora and repetition to set his ideas towards his audience, especially the use of synthetic personalization to include people into his speech, making them feel as if they have more of a say into the future; “ We dedicate this day to all the heroes and heroines in this country and the rest of the world who sacrificed in many ways and surrendered their lives so we could be free.” Nelson mandela creates a tone of gratitude towards every single person that helps him conquer the freedom of his birth place. Near the end of the extract Nelson Mandela creates a sense of strength into his tone by using anaphoras to emphasize what there will be for each and every one; “ Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each body, the mind and the soul have been freed…” here this creates a succesful view towards what the ex president of South Africa wanted to do with this country. He wanted to create jobs so people would no longer be unemployed, he wanted there to be food for each and every person that belonged to his government so that they wouldn’t starve, he wanted peace and justice for those who never even had a stable living, finally he reinforces the statement that each mind and soul had been freed. This also creates a sense of compassion for the whole population of South Africa that there was a brighter future ahead of them.

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