NEVER GIVE IN赏析

NEVER GIVE IN, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER

When Churchill visited Harrow on October 29 to hear the traditional songs again, he discovered that an additional verse had been added to one of them. It ran: “Not less we praise in darker day

The leader of our nation,

And Churchill's name shall win acclaim

From each new generation.

For you have power in danger's hour

Our freedom to defend, Sir!

Though long the fight we know that right

Will triumph in the end, Sir!”

Almost a year has passed since I came down here at your Head Master's kind invitation in order to cheer myself and cheer the hearts of a few of my friends by singing some of our own songs. The ten months that have passed have seen very terrible catastrophic events in the world -ups and downs, misfortunes- but can anyone sitting here this afternoon, this October afternoon, not feel deeply thankful for what has happened in the time that has passed and for the very great improvement in the position of our country and of our home? Why, when I was here last time we were quite alone, desperately alone, and we had been so for five or six months. We were poorly armed. We are not so poorly armed today; but then we were very poorly armed. We had the unmeasured menace of the enemy and their air attack still beating upon us, and you yourselves had had experience of this attack; and I expect you are beginning to feel impatient that there has been this long lull with nothing particular turning up!

But we must learn to be equally good at what is short and sharp and what is long and tough. It is generally said that the British are often better at the last. They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that each day will bring up some noble chance of war; but when they very slowly make up their minds that the thing has to be done and the job put through and finished, then, even if it takes months - if it takes years - they do it.

Another lesson I think we may take, just throwing our minds back to our meeting here ten months ago and now, is that appearances are often very deceptive, and as Kipling well says, we must"…meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same."

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period - I am addressing myself to the School - surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to

many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.

You sang here a verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse written in my honour, which I was very greatly complimented by and which you have repeated today. But there is one word in it I want to alter - I wanted to do so last year, but I did not venture to. It is the line -"Not less we praise in darker days."

I have obtained the Head Master's permission to alter darker to sterner."Not less we praise in sterner days."

Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.

Analysis of “NEVER GIVE IN, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER”

I.Abstract of the speech:

First, Churchill summarized the great events that had happened in the world with Great Britain in particular and then talked about the purpose of his visit to encourage the whole nation to fight against the Nazis. In the second part, Churchill analyzed the world situation and how other countries looked at Britain and then called on the British people not to give in. At the last, by changing a word in the additional verse of the school song, Churchill expressed his conviction that this nation was determined to fight for the victory of this great war.

II.The language features of Churchill's speech.

(1)In such speeches, the most important thing is to inspire people. Therefore,

Churchill was adept of using parallelism to emphasize his points. For example, "They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that each day will bring up some noble chance of war", that sentence expressed the determination of British enough.

(2)Another special feature is the comparison. Churchill used a lot of comparisons in

this speech to make his speech more infectious. Such as the situations 10 months ago and now, the normal people and the British, and so on. Then, it is about quotation. He quoted Kipling's words "meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same." He used this brief sentence to expound and emphasize his own ideal -- try to be brave when you face everything and never give in".

(3)Suitable diction. Churchill used a lot of thought-provoking and motivational

words to make people begun to think deeply and achieve his goal of encouragement. For example, he use, "ups and downs" to describe the situation of the enemy to let people know the difficulties they have to face and encourage them to become braver.

(4)The last one is periodic sentence. Churchill is really a master of periodic sentence.

This method he used to enrich his language can be found in everywhere of his

speech because such rhetorical device not only can bring more details of a matter, but can increase audience's interest and catch their attention. For instance, "another lesson I think we may take, just throwing our minds back to our meeting here ten months ago and now, is that appearances are often very deceptive, and as Kipling well says, we must '-meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same'".

III.The figures of speech and and word choosing

In order to make the speech be understood by large part of people, he didn't choose any obscure words or expressions so that people could get his point easily. Firstly, in the topic sentence "Never give in, never, never, never", he used a series of "Never" to express his feeling and appeal everyone to keep this faith, which is a special rhetorical device -- Tricolon that aims to emphasize something through repeating 3 times. Secondly, metaphor was also used in his speech. The most distinguished sentence used in the method is "Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate" that meant other nations thought Britain had been defeated and had nothing at all. Such metaphor indirectly conveys the information that will make the content seem euphemistically. Besides, antonym was used in the speech. "Ups/downs", "short/long", "triumph/disaster", "darker days/great days", "great or small" and "Large or petty" some of these antonyms are used to describe the terrible nature of the war, some of them are used to express the determination of the British people to fight on for the final victory, and some are used to encourage the audience not to lose hope.

The words used in his speech could be, as it were, accurately and vividly. As you can see, words like "terrible catastrophic events" and "far-reaching imagination" were chosen to describe the serious condition and the tough battle; "unmeasured menace of the enemy" and "might of the enemy" revealed how formidable the enemy they faced; and then, their determination and confidence to triumph were firm -- "never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense", "no flinching and no thought of giving in".

IV.The structure of this speech

The structure of this speech is clear. As the summary has mentioned, the speech could be divided by three parts. First, opening remarks. Churchill used the first paragraph to explain his purpose of coming here. Second, body of speech. In next four paragraphs, he told us the strict situation 10 months ago, and compared it with today's situation. Finally, closing remarks in paragraph six to eight. He appealed people "Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days" showing that he wanted change the wold and explained why he wanted to do so.

The structure is rigorous. When you read the speech, you will have a kind of feeling that you make smooth reading and no redundancy in content. That is because Churchill constantly repeated the key words of the main idea in one topic to make the whole speech seem compact, specifically speaking, that can be attribute to the cohesion in the structure, and coherence in the meaning. For example, from the first paragraph to the second, the author used a "But" the connect them which not only keep the logic of sentence structure but transits from "what had happened in the last 10 months" to "current situation" naturally on the semantic level.

V.Summary and comments

"NEVER GIVE IN, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER" was a speech that Churchill delivered in Harrow School on Oct. 29,1941 when the WWII was in the critical time. The speech was vivid and powerful, showing the excellent adept of speech and skills of writing of Churchill.

At that time, speech played an important role in unifying the whole nation. Therefore, the purpose of Churchill's speech was to emphasize the endeavors and determination of government, and call for people never give in. His speeches really brought the power for British people and played a leading role in the resistance against German domination of Europe. From that point, we can feel the charming of speech -- communicating, inspiring and unifying.

However, from my point of view, there is a deficiency. As we know, this speech was addressed in campus, even if it was facing the whole nation, students should be the main audience and main part of the speech or included them to the content so that they could be aroused enough with such relations. But Churchill seemed not pay

attention to that point, and there is nothing a word having relation with these students, which is a fly in the ointment.