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Valerie Casola
February 20th, 2015
WR 311 Style
Dr. Camper
Stylistic Analysis Final Draft
In her commencement speech to the graduating class of 2014 of Dartmouth College,
Shonda Rhimes states that, every single time someone asked me what I was going to talk
about in this speech, I would boldly and confidently tell them that I had all kinds of wisdom to
share. I was lying. I feel wildly unqualified to give you advice. There is no wisdom here
(Rhimes). Some critics disagree, saying that Rhimes spoke their [the students] language and
that her words would are a great way for them [the students] to realize they are not alone while
others, many of them being parents in the audience, failed to see how her speech would inspire
their children. Some suggest that Rhimes was inconsiderate to the presence of many that she
knew would find her language offensive or inappropriate (Asch). Rhimes stylistic choices, such
as her combination of the low and middle styles of language, use of tropes such as metaphors and
allusions, and her use of repetition and short sentences have all helped her successfully create a
connection with the students in the audience but were less successful in appealing to their
parents.
An alumni of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, Shonda Rhimes is a TV
writer and works on television shows such as Greys Anatomy and Scandal (IMDB). In her
speech, Rhimes says, I did not dream of being a TV writerI wanted to be Nobel Prizewinning author Tori Morrison which demonstrates that she did not end up following the original
path she set for herself, perhaps pointing to one of the reasons why she was selected to talk to a
group of college graduates to instill them with a sense of hope when everything does not have
to go according to a plan. Rhimes attended USC Film School as a way to return to story-telling,
this time in a way that appealed to her like nothing else before (Johnson). Shonda Rhimes is a

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professional writer who has taken important, and difficult, steps to follow her dreams and
achieve her goals. Her rhetorical situation, a commencement ceremony, is an event that affirms
each students search for knowledge which often includes a speech that seeks to put their
recent hard work into the context of their future (Balis). Her audience, then, is a group of
students who are searching for knowledge and who are entering a new, uncertain future, along
with their parents who are eager to see them step out into the world and be successful. This
means that Rhimes job is to create a speech that not only recognizes the hard work these
students have put in over their years as an undergraduate, but a speech that instills a sense of
hope, that, if they continue their hard work, what lies ahead of them will be a bright and
successful future. The many critics of Rhimes commencement address, most of which are
parents, who leave comments about how they cannot get over how vulgar was the language of
the Commencement speaker [was], suggest that Rhimes did not address her entire audience
successfully (Asch).
Rhimes characterizes some of the most important lessons for the students she is speaking
to with the use of metaphor. Fahnestock defines a metaphor as bringing over a term from an
alien lexical/semantic field to create a novel pairing that expresses a point trenchantly
(Fahnestock). They are used as a bridge between the familiar and the literal and they transfer
meaning from what is easily understood to more complex concepts that are harder to grasp
(Charteris-Black). By using a more complex concept, writers and speakers can, in a way,
romanticize an idea and make it seem more beneficial or interesting than it actually is. In her
speech, Rhimes tries to show that there are two kinds of people: the ones who are doers and
the ones who are dreamers. She says the dreamers stare at the sky and they make plans and
they hope and they talk endlessly about it and uses the metaphor, You are blue-skying your
life to show that these dreamers cannot accomplish their dreams by this alone (Rhimes).

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These people must become doers and actually take action to bring them closer to what they
want to accomplish. No one can actually blue-sky his or her life, but Rhimes is trying to say
that wishing and hoping and talking is the same thing as staring up at the sky all day; nothing is
getting done to actually make those dreams happen. Daydreaming a relatable experience and by
representing this idea this way, the audience better connects to it.
Rhimes also uses three strong metaphors to wrap up her speech. The first one is, It is my
hope that you run out of here, excited, leaning forward, into the wind, ready to take the world by
storm (Rhimes). Technically, it is not humanly possible to take the world by storm but the
audience understands that Rhimes is trying to tell them to make confident decisions early. She
wants them to associate the idea of power found in a large storm with themselves so they feel a
greater sense of confidence to take the first steps in the direction of their goals. The next
metaphor Rhimes uses is, I ended up building an empire out of my imagination (Rhimes).
Shonda Rhimes did not actually use her imagination to create a physical empire that people can
touch and live in. However, she did create an empire out of her work since her shows are so
popular. Real people adjust their lives to catch the next episode of Scandal or Greys
Anatomy on their televisions, truly living and breathing around a word created by Rhimes. This
metaphor helps her explain how important hard work is in a more tangible way. The students are
able to better understand her because they can see the products of her diligence. The last
metaphor she uses is, You are no longer works in progress (Rhimes) to explain to the students
that they are as ready for the future they can be. No one is ever a work in progress because
people are not born incomplete. This idea is supposed to suggest to the students that they do not
need to wait around and prepare themselves more for the future; they have everything they need
to get started on their new lives. These metaphors are appropriately placed because metaphors
may create realities for us, especially social realities. A metaphor may thus be a guide for future

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action (Lakoff and Johnson). By putting these metaphors towards the end of her speech, Rhimes
is pushing the students forward and her efforts are effective as long as the audience is willing to
suspend its idea of reality and see the bigger picture she is creating.
Rhimes summation is characterized by a strong choice of repetition and a smart sentence
construction. These stylistic choices help slow down her speech, making it more understandable,
and also help to keep the audiences attention as her pieces of wisdom come to a close. Towards
the end of her speech, Rhimes begins to talk about how feeling afraid of the real world is
acceptable and uses anaphora to give different examples. Rhimes repeats the word that at the
beginning of each of her sentences when discussing that it is not a bad thing to fear graduation or
the future. She also repeats the word you in the last five lines to give commands. The repetition
of one word at the beginning of a sentence helps group together all of the points, making them
more memorable and therefore more accessible to the audience. The repetition and grouping she
uses can also act as a form of validation (Colombia University). Because Rhimes gives multiple
examples of feelings the students can experience, such as feeling that the real world is hard
and the urge to cry while your mom packs up your stuff, she makes them seem more
acceptable because someone else, namely Shonda Rhimes, has felt them too. According to
Fahnestock, repetition in the beginning of a sentence is also important, especially to those who
are speaking, because it helps create a clear sentence structure (Fahnestock 231). The audience is
able to follow along more clearly because it already has an idea of where the speaker is going.
The end of Rhimes speech contains very short sentences which is effective because some
of her main points become more emphasized. The last four lines of her speech are all less than
five words and have the same subject, making them very straightforward. Short sentences also
help to facilitate memory; Rhimes audience may not remember every message she included in
her speech but will remember the last few snippets of advice she gives: You take it in. You

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breathe this rare air. You feel alive. You be yourself (Rhimes) because those points are
expressed through short, emphatic sentences (Holcomb and Killingsworth). They do not contain
much information to unpack and process there are no modifiers such as extraneous clauses,
appositives, or determiners that clog up the sentences. She does not put the students to sleep by
piling up long, winded sentences. When reading the speech as opposed to listening to it, each
short sentence is placed on a different line, making it easier for the lines to follow. The readers
eyes can follow the sentences more fluidly which helps the information to be interpreted in a
clear and concise way.
Rhimes also stylistically chooses to use conversational language to draw her listeners in.
This is also the choice that allows her to successfully connect with the students but also alienates
some parents. Rhimes uses a mix between the low and middle styles of language, being very
conversational during some parts of her speech while adopting a more serious choice of words in
other areas. She employs the low style of language, informal or colloquial language appropriate
for conversation and for writing that aims to sound conversational (Fahnestock) right from the
beginning, addressing the audience by saying So. This is weird. Me giving a speech. In general,
I do not like giving speeches (Rhimes). A few sentences later, she mentions that she gets this
overwhelming feeling of fearLike I might pass out. Or die. Or poop my pants or something.
(Rhimes). This language is not what one would expect to hear being spoken at a college, but it is
important to note that this is not a lecture taking place in a classroom it is a speech meant to
connect with a younger generation, motivate them and give them hope for the future as well.
By using this conversational language, Rhimes is connecting with the students in a way
their professors have not over the course of their time at Dartmouth, by reflecting on her
experiences in a light-hearted way. This stylistic element of reflection allows Rhimes to be open
and honest, which not only benefits her by giving her a strong ethos, but also puts her on the

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same level as the students she is speaking to. In a way, she no longer seems like an untouchable
famous person; she is not Shonda Rhimes the TV writer, but Shonda Rhimes the human being.
The repetition of her feelings as she prepares for a speech, having, Dry mouth. Heart beats so,
so fast. Everything in slow motion. Pass out, die, poop also, as well as being calming because it
is conversational, creates a humorous tone and a safer atmosphere where there is no pressure to
have the right answer or be perfect. There is also a sense of irony in her conversational language
that adds to the light-hearted, humorous tone, because no one would expect the professional TV
writer of shows such as Greys Anatomy and Scandal to be so nervous crafting words to say
to other people or to feel like she would have no wisdom worth sharing. This conversational
language connects Shonda Rhimes with her audience because they both share similar feelings
being vulnerable and nervous.
The transition between the conversational language and the more serious language, the
middle style, occurs when Rhimes decides to include a more formal allusion to the fireside
chats in an effort to make her audience feel safe and comfortable. This historical example is
important because the chats, started by Franklin D. Roosevelt, were used to calm the fears and
restore the confidence of Americans (The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
and this educated reference is one the audience, both students and parents, should be able to
identify with. By referring to her speech as a fireside chat, Rhimes portrays that she is attempting
to calm the fears and restore confidence in these new graduates as they prepare to enter the real
world. Rhimes also employs a more sophisticated level of language as she addresses the parents
of Dartmouths class of 2014. The use of words such as parent, mother, taught, survive,
and raised all create a more serious mood because the actions concerned with parenthood are
highly respected amongst adults. The small utterances and details of fears effect on the body are
nowhere to be found as Rhimes reflects on the fact that she is a parent herself. When she says, I

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am a mother now, so I know some things, some very different things she is reaching out to
the parents in the audience, showing that she has grown as an individual as all parents hope their
children will do.
However, this appeal to parenthood was not enough to please the older members of the
audience. Some parents felt that Rhimes speech was replete with words and phrases that back
in the day would have been considered embarrassingly out-of-place vulgarity such as when she
uses profanity and supports the students decisions that have left them with nasty hangovers
(Asch). In the speech, Shonda Rhimes uses the word ass or asshole on at least three different
occasions and uses the word suck five times. She also hoped that the students were as hung
over as she was during her graduation ceremony because they deserve it (Rhimes). These
details of conversational language did not sit well with parents because they were expecting the
situation to be taken more seriously. They only want the best advice for their sons and daughters
as they venture into a new life. One parent remarked that it was unfortunate that Rhimes was
inconsiderate to the presence of many that she knew would find her language offensive or
inappropriate in context (Asch). Another report mentions that some parents of the young
graduates decided to walk out, clearly showing a distaste for what they were hearing (Asch).
These details suggest that the conversational language which appealed to the students did not
have the same effect on the parents, therefore making Rhimes unsuccessful in her rhetorical goal
to appeal to her entire audience.
Shonda Rhimes created an uplifting and inspirational speech for the graduating class of
2014 at Dartmouth College by speaking to the students, the vast majority of her audience, on
their own level. Her choices to use more conversational language, use of repetition, short
sentence structure, and metaphors to create relatable comparisons helped create a speech that was
easily to follow, relatable, inspiring, uplifting, and memorable for the students. Unfortunately,

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she was less successful in appealing to the older generations, their parents, with her use of
conversational language that included profanity and the acceptance of practices not appropriate
for the situation.
Reflection: I found the revision of this draft to be on the more difficult side because I
realized there were some components of style that we learned in class that I did not fully
understand, such as irony, and hope that it will be cleared up as the course progresses.
However, I did enjoy this assignment because I really like seeing how different words fit
and work in different places. It is hard to realize that you can say something in a much
more pungent way by switching around some words. Sometimes, you dont even realize it.
It was also interesting considering the two different aspects of the audience: the parents as
well as the students. I didnt realize that some choices would not appeal to older
generations until I sat down and looked at it, and it definitely makes me more conscious of
it in my own writing. I think this was a very valuable exercise/experience.

Works Cited
Asch, Joseph. Dartblog. 9 June 2014. Web. 2 February 2015.
Balis, Tony. Voices: Commencement Speeches. 2013. Web. 7 February 2015.
Charteris-Black, Jonathan. Book Review: Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of
Metaphor . September 2011. Web. 7 February 2015.
Colombia University. Repetition/Linearity. n.d. Web. 7 February 2015.
Fahnestock, Jeanne. Rhetorical Style. New York City: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2011.
Holcomb, Chris and M Jimmie Killingsworth. Performing Prose: The Study and Practice of
Style in Composition. Southern Illinois University, 2010. Print.
IMDB. Shonda Rhimes: Biography. n.d. Web. 7 February 2015.
Johnson, Pamela. The Cutting Edge: Shonda Rhimes Dissects Grey's Anatomy. September 2005.
Web. 7 February 2015.

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Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 2003. Print.
Rhimes, Shonda. Dartmouth College Commencement. June 8 2014. Web. 2 February 2015.
The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Teaching With Documents: FDR's
Fireside Chat on the Purposes and Foundations of the Recovery Program. n.d. Web. 7
February 2015.