Speech analysis

           

Krakowiak          5

Michael Krakowiak

Susan Gebhardt-Burns

Public Speaking

March 6, 2012

Braveheart: Battle of Sterling Speech

         When considering some of the most effective movie speeches of all time, the rally speech delivered by William Wallace at the Battle of Sterling in the movie Braveheart can certainly be considered for the nomination. From the fact that the speaker was addressing an army of strangers he'd only met right before the speech, to the delivery being simultaneously aided and interrupted by the movements of a restless horse, to the fiery passion and masterful, yet very simple, language and points touched upon, the short and powerful speech is well deserving of its cult status among movie fans. Persuasive in nature, the speech easily accomplished its goal of rousing a rag tag bunch of freemen soldiers into a consolidated fighting force hell-bent on obtaining its freedom from the tyrannical oppressors that are represented by the force across the field that heavily outnumbers them, and for this reason is deserving of its praise and legendary status.

         In a masterful stroke of attention grabbing introduction, the speaker immediately turns to the army and confronts it with a difficult question: "If this is your army, why does it go?" This hook is especially effective because it accomplishes several key goals necessary to hold an unwilling audience's attention. Firstly, it quickly shines light on the audience's flaw, in this case cowardice, which will never fail in grabbing people's interest. Secondly, the question itself requires the audience to be introspective of itself, if only for a moment, and reflect on its motives for doing whatever its doing, in this case abandoning a field of battle. Finally, the question also introduces the first portion of the plea the speaker is trying to persuade the army to abide, in this case staying. After an extremely well played hook, the rest of the introduction proves to be just as electrifying.

         The speaker goes on to introduce himself and referring to the audience as "Sons of Scotland", further highlighting their cowardly intentions but in such a way as to make them feel beholden to the speaker's cause while also instilling the audience with a sense of nationalistic pride, a complimentary feeling absolutely necessary after pointing out an audience's fault and insulting it to its face. After introducing himself, the speaker is questioned about his identity, with a man commenting that William Wallace is "seven feet tall" and the shorter man before them couldn't possibly be Wallace. Ingeniously, the speaker uses the audience member's own doubt and ridicule against him, citing that "If he were here, he'd consume the English with fireballs from his eyes and bolts of lightning from his arse!" This deft reversal gains him a roaring laughter, the audience's further attention, but most importantly, their trust. By making fun of himself, the speaker lightens a very heavy audience mood, which will aid the audience in listening, but he also solidifies the credibility of both his identity and his argument, all critical in being able to persuade an unwilling audience to lay down their lives for a cause they don't initially even believe in. As any experienced speaker would, Wallace then uses the territory he's gained through humor to quickly shift the subject to the serious point he wants to get across, specifically "...an army of my countrymen in defiance of tyranny." After setting up both himself and the audience in as favorable a position as possible, Wallace goes on to deliver the main idea of his speech: persuading this hodgepodge militia to fight a seasoned, heavily armored, numerically superior English force.

         Riding the momentum he had from his introduction, Wallace immediately puts the point to the audience, but not without first continuing to rear them in with compliments laden with subliminal messages. "You've come to fight as free men, and free men you are," Wallace puts forth to the audience, subtly but definitely undermining the audience's initial apprehensions and even their motives. To tell a force that was almost convinced to flee that they've assembled to fight, but sprinkling the message to them that they are all free men and the better for it for having used that freedom to assemble here is an effective trick to use, and even more clever is the fact that it isn't hidden with heavy-laden vocabulary, but rather hiding right out in the open with plain but successful language. The maneuvering, successful as it is, only serves as a buildup to the request, the cornerstone of any persuasive argument: "What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight?" In this, Wallace's speech can initially be seen as having failed, for an immediate reaction of "boos" and "no's" threaten to halt his momentum dead in its tracks. One bold audience member even responds, "We will run, and we will live." Where most speakers might fumble, Wallace quickly uses the audience's message against itself and quickly combines both body and conclusion in a massive call to action that strikes with lightning speed, laser precision, and undeniable success:

Fight, and you may die. Run, and you'll live...at least for a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days, from this day to that, for once chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom?!

The first point he makes in the body of his retort not only lends temporary credence to the audience's objections and misgivings, but it also makes a very indistinct jab at how ridiculous their cowardice and unwillingness really is. In amending his living statement with "...at least for a while", Wallace quickly points out that you can run, but you can't hide, and if the English don't claim your life today, it's only a matter of time before the very result they seek to avoid will inevitably come to fruition.

The second point Wallace makes further panders to the audience's argument, comforting them but still steering them to the understanding of how wrong they are. Even allowing for the fact that they may die old in their beds and having lived long lives, can those long lives truly be called fulfilling in retrospect, as all lives should be, if they were spent running, hiding, and fearing? Elaborating further, Wallace offers an alternative to a long, unfulfilled life by posing the question of how much each of these men would give to have another chance at living a meaningful life, even if it was a shorter and more brutal, by returning back to this fateful encounter and defying their oppressors wholeheartedly. This rousing concept leads directly into the fiery conclusion, which is dually impressive for not only being one of the best remembered speech conclusions of all time, but for consisting of only one sentence as well.

The legendary conclusion to Wallace's speech simply ends with the last portion of his question posed to the audience, but also provides a call to action. Though the proposition put forth by the speaker may be dangerous, and in this case fatal, wouldn't it all be worth it if a man's legacy was that he was born, lived, and died free in spite of overwhelming odds and inevitable defeat? Is there truly any alternative for an army of men whose only asset against such an overwhelming force is their undeniable right to live as they see fit? The audience's response is all that need be said about the effectiveness of Wallace's final argument.

A literal call to action results in a complete overturning of an army's morale, bravery, and subsequent actions. Through clever, but uncomplicated, rhetoric, the speaker is able to sow the seeds of persuasion into each word spoken to the unwilling audience while keeping the audience itself blissfully ignorant of its own mind changing. Through extemporaneous, fiery, and genuinely passionate delivery, the speaker's loud, booming voice and constant, but gradual, volume increase makes it so that each idea builds upon the next, and each word carries significantly more weight than the last. Through masterful interaction with the audience utilizing humor, eye contact, and argument reversal, the speaker was able to turn the tides of an otherwise failed speech to persuade the audience, enflame their morale, and have them act as the speaker would like them to. All these speaking techniques have culminated into a short, exquisite speech that allows Wallace to seize epic victory from the jaws of defeat.