By Jason Lim
The whole world is abuzz with Obama's election victory.
The pundits are especially tripping over themselves, saluting Obama's eloquence with the English language as the key to his success, especially delighting in comparing his command of English with Sarah Palin's lack thereof.
However, technical expertise with rhetoric does not necessarily make you eloquent. It will make you articulate. You must bring something more. Ultimately, Obama is eloquent because he knows how to tell a good story, not because his pronunciation is precise or he knows how to avoid a dangling modifier.
The first time I heard Obama speak was in Professor Marshall Ganz's Public Narrative class at Harvard Kennedy School. He played Barack Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention. The speech was titled, ``The Audacity of Hope," and it was electrifying. I actually compare it to the ``I Have a Dream" speech. From the palpable silence that I felt in the classroom afterwards, I don't think I was the only one who felt this way.
Why were we so affected? That was the purpose of the class: to find out why some speeches engage us on a deeper level and sear themselves into our psyche after just one reading or listening, while other speeches are altogether forgettable even after several exposures.
But language is a funny thing. It's organic, holistic and does not lend itself easily to any structured analysis. But one thing that did stick in my mind from the class was that Obama was so effective because he was telling a story on three dimensions: Story of Self, Story of Us, and Story of Now.
These are not separate stories, but different elements of a continuous story that flow into one another. The Story of Self defines who you are and what meanings you attach to your own life as you have lived it so far. The Story of Us positions your story in the larger narrative of a group that you belong to, forming a common base of understanding, empathy and destiny. The Story of Now is what conveys the need and urgency of an action that the ``Us" needs to take together to arrive at the common destiny, usually with the implicit understanding of the ``Self" as the leader.
At the 2004 Democratic Convention, this is what Obama said about Story of Self: ``Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let's face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father, my grandfather, was a cook, a domestic servant … Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place; America, which stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before. While studying here, my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas.
In a few, short sentences, we are immediately drawn into Obama's own story, which he defines as the product of an ``improbable love." And we do see how truly improbably Obama's origins were, especially in the socioeconomic context of the times. However, we feel deeply and immediately familiar with the story because it's one that has been embedded deep into our psyche. Obama's ``Story of Self" contains elements of rags-to-riches and heroic love across boundaries myths that we grew up on. That's why Obama's ``Story of Self" immediately resonates within us and automatically becomes a ``Story of Us." Obama's story is the quintessential American dream; with different coloring, sure, but with the same familiar plot and host of characters.
Obama makes the connection more obvious in his Story of Us: ``They shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or 'blessed,' believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success … I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on Earth, is my story even possible."
And now that Obama has firmly placed himself into the mainstream myth of the American dream, he has the common ground to ask his audience to act for a common cause: Vote for John Kerry, the democratic candidate, as the next president of the U.S. This was his ``ask." By sharing with us his compelling Story of Self and linking it to the familiar Story of Us, Obama was telling the audience that their vote will be a vote to keep the American Dream alive, as he has lived it and shared it tonight. That was the Story of Now.
If you examine Obama's speeches since then, especially his declaration of candidacy in February of 2007, you will see the same exact pattern. The details might vary, but the story remains the same: Vote for me because I have lived the American Dream and will safeguard yours. It's a successful story, the effect of which does not diminish with time and repetition, because it is so timeless.
Jason Lim was the 2007-2008 fellow at Harvard Korea Institute. He can be reached at Jason.lim@post.harvard.edu