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To be a successful public speaker, one should be able to make people interested in what he or she is saying and keep them involved in the topic of the speech throughout its whole duration. Finally, it is important to be able to deliver persuasive, entertaining, or informative speeches to achieve various goals. This paper will discuss how the film “Great Debaters” discloses the art of making speeches.
To begin with, the film is dedicated to the famous Wiley College debate team that defeated numerous rivals including the Harvard University team. The major focus of the movie is on the skills of the debaters and on their abilities to ground their statements and prove the assumptions they make:
When capitalism was young, the old puritanical concept of duty was: “He who does not work shall not eat.” Now that made sense when there was more work than men willing to do it. But those days are gone. Now, there are millions who want to work but find themselves standing in bread lines. Now, should they not eat because there are no jobs? People today, we need a new concept of duty: the right of the individual to demand from society just as much as he gives to society. (Great Debaters, 2007).
This speech proclaimed by Hamilton Burgess, one of the Wiley College debate team members, is a bright example of the informative and persuasive message delivered by one of the film characters. It includes an introduction to the topic, a clear thesis statement, and a supportive argument which is concluded by expressing the speaker’s attitude on the matter and by appealing to the audience. Another example of the persuasive speech is the one delivered by James Farmer, Jr. during the debate session with Harvard University in defense of civil disobedience as a moral form of resistance:
In 1919, in India, ten thousand people gathered in Amritsar to protest the tyranny of British rule. General Reginald Dyer trapped them in a courtyard and ordered his troops to fire into the crowd for ten minutes. Three hundred seventy-nine died men, women, children, shot down in cold blood. Dyer said he had taught them “a moral lesson.” Gandhi and his followers responded not with violence, but with an organized campaign of non-cooperation. Government buildings were occupied. Streets were blocked with people who refused to rise, even when beaten by police. Gandhi was arrested. But the British were soon forced to release him. He called it a “moral victory.” The definition of moral: Dyer’s “lesson” or Gandhi’s victory. You choose (Great Debaters, 2007).
However, the heroes of the movie considered were also proficient at making entertaining speeches, which, at the same time, contained persuasive or teaching elements. One of the examples to this point is the Langston Hughes’ “I, Too, Sing America” delivered by Denzel Washington’s character Melvin B. Tolson in class:
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed –
I, too, am America (Great Debaters, 2007).
To conclude, the film under consideration exemplifies brightly all the qualities people should have to succeed in public speaking. The informative, entertaining and persuasive speeches delivered by Denzel Washington and his colleagues are filled with confidence and catch the listeners attentively. Moreover, the speakers deliver their ideas emotionally and their being involved in the matter of their speeches adds to their credibility for the listeners.
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