A lot of General Conference talks, including Elder Bednar's, used ecphrasis while telling stories. By taking the time to describe the Prophets and Apostles that made an impact in his life, he really appeals to our remembering the same Apostles and thinking of how they have made an impact in our lives.
To drive home is main point, Elder Bednar uses a variety of literary approaches. He starts out by quoting Elder Hales, "When you cannot do what you have always done, then you always do what is most important." He then uses syncrisis to compare and contrast physical strength and spiritual ability. Using examples like loss of sight vs gain of spiritual insight, lack of physical stamina vs gaining spiritual endurance. Antithesis is also used to explain that though some people view elderliness as bad, it is actually a positive thing for many reasons.
One other method he used was the visuals as he quoted past Apostles and Prophets. This instantly brought familiar feelings and nostalgic thoughts which helped impact the audience. In this same part of his talk he used repetition by saying, "...from a man I love" at the end of each quote. This added to his other methods of ethos and pathos which made for a wonderful talk.
I thought the use of stories of apostles was an interesting technique that Elder Bednar doesn´t usually use. I´ve started to see him step outside of his normal, rigid talks. The stories of apostles also helped organize the talk because it was easy to notice and expound upon apostolic similarities.
ReplyDeleteI really liked Elder Bednar's talk, and it was for the reason that you said at the end, how Elder Bednar repeated "from a man I love." It at least helped me personally realize how much I will miss these apostles voices at conference, and I think that was the effect that Elder Bednar was going for.
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