Parks 1
Hannah Parks
Professor Freymiller
CAS 137H
8 October 2013
Rhetorical Analysis: J.K. Rowling’s Harvard Commencement Speech
Throughout each of our individual journeys on this earth, it can be difficult to
see the importance of the dark aspects of life. We all strive to succeed, and in ways
try to pretend that no obstacles stand before us. In J.K. Rowling’s commencement
speech at Harvard University in 2008, she explains the significance of failure and
why she emphasizes imagination. While analyzing the speech of her text I’ve seen
that she effectively uses ethos, pathos and logos to describe her main points and
reach out to the young, successful audience before her.
In her speech, Rowling explains her back-story, her own experience with
failure. These details make her credible, providing ethos. Rowling herself has
confronted failure head-on, and because of that the students of Harvard can trust
her opinions and viewpoints on the topic. Not only has she dealt with the hardship
of failure, but also with the satisfying feeling of success, “Her lived and learned
experiences offer the audience an insight into the kind of life she led and how she
came to be where she is at the moment, a successful writer that made Harry Potter
famous world-wide” (Liu 1). Her success came to her by her following her dreams
and pursing them in every possible way. She picked herself up and dug herself out of
the overwhelming hole of failure without looking back, “It is impossible to live
without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not
Parks 2
have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default” (Rowling). It is understandable
to why Rowling brings attention to the importance of failure.
Another way in which ethos is incorporated is that the students and general
public know about her successful career and her affect on every student’s childhood
in her audience through her novel series Harry Potter:
As the ethos, Rowling makes the point to make a reference to her claim that
makes her famous, Harry Potter. At the end of her introduction she says “ I
will convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion,”
knowing that everyone in the audience will immediately be able to make a
connection to this woman standing in front of them. (“Rhetorical Analysis”)
Not only has she been successful in her life to the point where she has become
famous for it, but her success has been in the past few years. Her ethos is more
convincing because these students have grown up reading her novels and watching
the movies that came soon after. They have watched her success start, grow and
become what it is today. They have a solid understanding and front-seat view of her
achievement. She is relevant and modern in today’s society which brings her more
attention by the younger generations, like the one sitting in front of her.
In the aspect of emotion, Rowling promotes a kind of comfortable
conversation in a more formal environment, but does include serious topics and
moments of advice. This aspect of her speech can relate to the students, as they are
comfortable sitting with each other, those who they have grown friendships with
over the past few years, but it is their formal graduation ceremony. It also recounts
her novel series Harry Potter. These novels are that of her imagination, which are
Parks 3
lighthearted but also serious at the same time. The story line provides humor and
thoughtful action for the audience, which Rowling also accomplishes in her
commencement speech. Rowling brings humor into her speech in the very
beginning, “Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks
of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement
address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation!” (Rowling). By
incorporating this humor and using it as a way to dismiss her nerves, “She is…
tapping into the graduate’s emotions. Just as Rowling had endured “weeks of fear
and nausea,” upon the presentation of her speech, it goes with out saying that the
graduate’s are feeling that same intense feeling about entering the real world
officially” (“Rhetorical Analysis”).
Rowling continues to be witty and comical, explaining how she barely
remembers her own graduation speech by British philosopher Baroness Mary
Warnock, but hopefully these students will remember hers. From saying this, she
bonds with her audience by remembering what it was like to be in their place.
Turning to a more serious tone after, Rowling presents her two main points to the
audience, like said before, the benefits of failure and the importance of imagination.
Rowling explains how failure and imagination made her life into what it is today,
“Rowling motivates her audience by saying that she was not prepared to meet with
failure seven years after she graduated, and decided to bravely face life” (Liu 2).
Rowling lets the audience know before hand what the speech has in store for
them. Failure and imagination have completely opposite connotations, making the
audience feel an entire range of emotions and getting them completely involved. By
Parks 4
stating that there are benefits to failure can also cause confusion, since failure has
always been know to be something to avoid, “Failures, according to Rowling have
benefits depending on one’s attitude toward it. She stressed the importance of
considering failure as fuel for improvement and for determination to achieve
success” (“Reflection on J.K. Rowling’s Address to the Harvard Graduates”). Being
graduates from such an elite university, Rowling explains that they may not have
experienced such failure but instead just the fear of it, and have also forgotten the
importance of imagination.
Aside from emotionally connecting with the audience, Rowling does supply
logical reasoning to her arguments. Rowling uses logos in her speech by giving
examples of reality and the brutality of the real world in which these graduates are
about to enter:
With the usage of words like “poverty”, “failure”, “homeless”, “scale”,
Rowling carefully chooses her diction, convincing her audience and securing
a special connection among them. Being able to engage one’s audience with a
right tone and appropriate appeals are important elements for making a
speech successful. (Liu 2)
She redefines imagination in a more “adult version” to connect with the student’s
new path into reality, “Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to
envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation…
it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we
have never shared” (Rowling). She fantasizes about the importance of imagination,
but then connects to how imagination can help people who have not experienced
Parks 5
such events relate to those who have. By doing so it lets the human race do greater
deeds, because they are able to imagine themselves in other’s shoes, and to mobilize
together to make a difference, “Rowling’s speech encourages the students to become
relevant citizens” (“Reflection on J.K. Rowling’s Address to the Harvard Graduates”).
Rowling talks about her familiarity with the presence of cruelty in the real
world through her job at the African research department at Amnesty
International’s headquarters in London. She encountered torture victims, cases of
rape and execution and controlling governments who unjustly took power over its
citizens. The appeal to logos in her speech gives her a ground to support her
arguments. They are not fictional or fantasies in compare to her novels, they are real
world examples of the importance of imagination. Again, connecting to the fact that
these students are moving from a some-what protected life at college to the real
world where they are to experience more evil.
Rowling comes full circle when it gets down the appeals of her arguments.
She sufficiently provides ethos, pathos and logos, which attaches herself to her
audience completely. Using her own experiences, she promotes possible ones that
will affect those graduates sitting before her. Through her wisdom and success she
is able to give advice and point out the central aspects of life that some are not able
to comprehend just through schooling. By suggesting certain ideas, she can unite her
audience with what lies before them. Personally, she is able to associate with the
students in a way that others could not simply because of her ethos, and expands
from her ethos to connect with them through pathos and logos.