The Effectiveness of Anna Quindlen's Commencement Address-1999

All graduation ceremonies are comprised of the handing out of diplomas and a commencement address that is usually done by an alumni of the school. The address add a unique opportunity to hear a renowned speaker and force the graduates, as well as the families and friends in attendance, to consider the thoughts they hold in regards to life; however, they are seldomly remembered for long.

In Anna Quindlen's commencement address that she gave at Mount Holyoke College in 1999, she stresses trying to go against the homogenization of society and be your own individual.  She implores that each member of the audience leave his or her backpack "full of bricks" behind and follow the "small voice from inside [him or her], that tells [him or her] to go another way".  This correlates to the characteristic of transcendentalism that stresses individualism and self-reliance.

I was assigned Anna Quindlen's commencement address to read and annotate, and I honestly was not a fan of it.  When watching a video of her giving the speech, her body language did not come across as very strong since she kept looking down at the words, hence her point did not project as greatly as it could have if she knew how her speech was supposed to go.  Also, she included a couple remarks that were supposed to be funny, however the audience and I didn't seem to think they were.  In addition, her metaphors could have been much more convincing.  Lastly, her closing statement, "Every day feels light as a feather," was simply powerless and did not wrap up her speech very well.  While her idea of not letting society's idea of perfection mold you into that type of person is significant, I felt as though her writing did not live up to the standards of the commencement addresses I have had the honor of hearing live, such as Sanjay Gupta's 2012 speech at the University of Michigan graduation this year.

To be honest, maybe in some cases it is a good thing that graduates usually don't recall the commencement addresses for long after they are given.  I'm sure the graduating class of 1999 from Mount Holyoke College doesn't treasure her speech because even after listening to it and reading it twice, I did not feel attached to what she was trying to say.  In the end, these addresses will only be memorable if: 1) something embarrassing or awkward happens during the speech, or 2) the speech impresses everyone in attendance because it has a combination of compelling, humorous, and sentimental characteristics.  If it does the latter, the graduates are much more apt to try to follow the ideas that the speaker presents, making for a commencement speech that actually does its job.

Use of Appeals in Everyday Life

Whether emotional, ethical, or rational, everyone comes into contact with many appeals each day.  Commercials, junk mail, billboards, tv and radio shows, and many other types of media use a combination of appeals in order to make more people agree with the opinions of those who pay for them.

When reading significant historical writings from colonial times, the frequent use of appeals to persuade readers is evident.  For example, "The Crisis" by Thomas Paine was written to boost the morale of the soldiers and inspire them to keep fighting against the British.  In it, Paine incorporated such ethical appeals as, "...our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for whose fathers we shall doubt of," in order to remind the soldiers about how terrible it is that the soldiers and British in general are taking over every aspect of their lives.

The most common use of these different appeals currently is related to the upcoming presidential elections. By using these persuasive strategies, both the candidates and their political parties desperately try to gain more voters.  For example, in one of his speeches, Mitt Romney said, "Three years later, unemployment is still above 8%, a figure he said his stimulus would keep from happening,".  Using this statistic as a rational appeal, he hoped to gain support for him in the election.

While these appeals certainly do help change the minds of some indecisive voters, they do not necessarily affect those who already have their mind made up.  Appeals can only influence people to a certain extent; once that is reached, people have to make their own minds up.

Caution: Peer Pressure

What would you do if all your friends wanted to: Spread a malicious rumor?  Haze a new student?  Pull a disrespectful prank on a teacher?  Steal something from your favorite store?

Would you give in and do what they did just because you think they will alienate you if you don't participate or would you try to put an end to the madness?

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the friends of Abigail Williams have to make this decision.  Specifically when they are in the court room and Abigail begins pretending that there is a spirit overcoming her, these girls make the decision to follow along in her footsteps and do the same.  Once one other girl faints and pretends to feel the spirit, they all join in quickly.  They know that if they didn't go along with this absurdity, she would probably separate herself from them in the future, which leads them into doing whatever she wants so that won't happen.  By associating themselves with her when she is powerful, they also feel a sense of power, hence they don't want to break off associations with her because then they would go back to being powerless young girls in the community.  Particularly Mary Warren feels this sense of pressure when Proctor makes her come clean about the false witchcraft accusations in court, but then she changes her mind when she realizes how terribly it would affect her social standing with the others if she told on them.

This act of doing things because others around you do them correlates to what is known today as peer pressure.  Frequently, adolescents especially give in to this unspoken encumbrance and do what those around them are doing without even taking the time to question it.  This is a mentally dangerous place to be in because it takes out reason and logic from one's thought process.  The common paradigm "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?" is often used by parents to warn against letting peer pressure overcome you.  It's important to make your own decisions and not let the actions of those around you decide what you are going to do in a situation.

Chain Reactions: Origins and Causatums

Uncontrollable panic, crazy madness, ridiculous accusations:  All of these correspond to times of mass hysteria.  Whether the chaos is due to economic, political, or social reasons, it spreads like wildfire throughout a community.

While reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller, we are exposed to the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s and the delirium that accompanied them.  In this dramatic piece, Miller describes how psychotic and paranoid people became when these accusations arose, along with how women in the community were unjustly being accused as being witches without any credible evidence.

A similar mass hysteria occurred in the 1940s and 1950s, when Americans were deathly afraid that Communists were among them.  During this Anti-Communist frenzy, referred to as the Red Scare or McCarthyism, people were randomly being accused of having affiliations with the American Communist Party without any actual evidence.  The author of The Crucible, Arthur Miller, was actually called before a congressional committee and questioned about having relations to the American Communist Party. He admitted to having attended a few of its meetings, however would not discuss who else was in attendance, leading to his citation for contempt of Congress.  That provided the basis for his piece, in which he tried to warn against mass hysteria by showing the absurdity of the situation.

The concept of mass hysteria relates to that of peer pressure.  Once one person does something, those around them are likely to do something similar, which can be both good or bad.  Say one person is at an event and sees litter on the ground and starts picking it up; if those around them do the same, that would be a positive chain reaction.  However, as was the case in the Salem witch trials and during the Red Scare, one stimulus can lead to a quickly expanding and horrific scenario.  By comparing these two types of situations, one begins to see the importance in making positive contributions to society, rather than ones that can tear apart communities.