Rives Speech Analysis Review

Rives Review                                                                                                                        Jacqueline Simmonds CIM603

John Rives did an excellent rhetorical speech about, of all topics – 4 o’clock in the morning.  Rives is a master at using ethos, pathos and logos to bring such a mundane topic across to his audience.  He uses humor, stories – mostly personal and other situational characters and events to bring this across. He bombards the audience rhetorically with 4 o’clock am video snippets which forces the audience to think on how much 4 o’clock is referenced. He even uses the Great Gastby where a reference to 4 o’clock in the morning.  More importantly, he uses humor and stories to connect with the audience and forces them to pay attention to his topic.

He makes comparisons and contrasting stories of well-known people who are totally opposites, such as Ron Jeremy, who is a porn star and Simone De Beauvoir who is a feminist and shows how that though they are different, they have something in common. Both have a significant event in their lives that happened at 4 o’clock in the morning.

Rives kept his audience attuned and used all the cannons of rhetoric to connect with and hold his audience’s attention while keeping them amused and informed. His skill in doing so is superb and he does it at ease and with comfort – even when his topic covers controversial or sensitive topics such as what a porn star does or his own private love life. I truly enjoyed this unusual Ted talk speech.