Refiguring Obama's Rhetoric: The Balancing Act

On the night he was elected president, we revealed that Barack Obama's Secret for Stirring a Crowd was the classical rhetorical device of tricolon. In line after line of his victory speech, Mr. Obama demonstrated how the three-part series of parallel structures (words, phrases, or clauses) can usually be counted on to impose gravity, rhythm, and emphasis in appropriate measures.

But in Wednesday night's State of the Union address, Mr. Obama shied away from his favorite rhetorical figure--not altogether, but for the most part. And those few tricolons that did show up weren't especially memorable. ("To create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives.")

The president's neglect of the tricolon was due in part to the rhetorical situation. A state of the union address is more like a loading platform for delivering catalogs (of achievements, challenges, and goals) than a jumping-off point for soaring oratory. Nonetheless, rousing rhetoric is Mr. Obama's stock-in-trade, and on Wednesday night there were moments when his words took wing--though usually without the aid of the magic number three.

In light of the sort of year we've just been through, it's hardly surprising that the president downplayed his trademark figure of amplification and relied instead on what Aristotle called the "oppositional" figure of speech--antithesis. It's the device of balanced contrasts ("not this, but this") that can succinctly convey a forceful argument. (John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address was a grand exercise in climactic antithetical observations.) Consider these examples from Mr. Obama's address to Congress:

• Some are frustrated; some are angry. They don't understand why it seems like bad behavior on Wall Street is rewarded but hard work on Main Street isn't.


• When I ran for President, I promised I wouldn't just do what was popular--I would do what was necessary.


• Look, I am not interested in punishing banks, I'm interested in protecting our economy.


• We will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't.


• The people expect us to solve problems, not run for the hills.


• We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions.


• The idea here is simple. Instead of rewarding failure, we only reward success. Instead of funding the status quo, we only invest in reform--reform that raises student achievement; inspires students to excel in math and science; and turns around failing schools that steal the future of too many young Americans, from rural communities to the inner city.

That last example, you'll notice, is a double antithesis followed by a resumptive modifier ("reform--reform") and--for old times' sake--an ascending tricolon.

Rhetorician George A. Kennedy has pointed out that when the antithetical style is amped up to play to a crowd (as it often was by the Sophists of ancient Greece), antitheses can overwhelm rational thought with a "tintinnabulation of rhyming words and echoing rhythms." But used selectively, as Edward P.J. Corbett has observed, the device "can produce the effect of aphoristic neatness and can win the author a reputation for wit." In addition, by defining conflicts in fairly simple terms and reducing choices to just one or the other, a speaker can use antithesis to project an image (or ethos) of confidence and authority.

Put simply, antithesis is a balancing act. If it also happens to be a metaphor for the presidency itself, well--that's one figure of speech you'll have to pursue on your own.

More About Rhetoric:

• What Is Rhetoric?
• Figures, Tropes, and Other Rhetorical Terms
• Rhetorical Analysis of E B. White's "The Ring of Time"

Image: President Barack Obama delivering the State of the Union address on January 27, 2010