The first thing I would like to note right off the bat is that he starts off so many sentences with "we." When I read this, I kept hearing in my mind "we.....we....we.....we...." (especially in the middle paragraphs). I think that's great use of parallelism, especially because Obama is emphasizing that we have to work with each other in order for things to work out. Through this he is able to tell the reader that he is willing to be and knows that he has to be a team player for the next four years.
|Examples of Obama's repetition|
I noticed that he likes putting in the quote from the declaration such as "We hold these truths to be self-evident." The idea he poses next was something that I found interesting - "For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing - that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth." I could not agree more - we must make use of opportunities that are given to us since nothing will happen if we just let them sit at our feet. The way he puts the ideas right next to each other allow us to better contrast them and think about the logic. Later on in the speech, he mentions "We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths - that all of us are created equal..." again, with reference to the declaration, but applying the principal to a more modern (and controversial) issue about gay rights.