Rhetorical Analysis Of Franklin Roosevelt's Speech

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In 1941 World War 2 was in full speed. The Nazi’s we 're expanding into Europe and The USSR. At the other side of the world The Japanese were stretching their territories throughout Asia. The United States, led by Franklin Roosevelt, decided to embargo Japan in order to slow down their expansion. This would lead Japan to attack our military base, PearlHarbor. The day that would "live in Infamy." A day after the attack, FDR made a speech to congress. His speech used Repetition & Parallelism, emotional appeal, and authoritative, but calm tone to make a clear call to arms for congress and the people against The Japanese Empire.
In his speech there are many examples of repetition and parallelism. In the one paragraph he repeatedly said “Last night
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“ I ask that congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.” His first one at this part is different from the rest of his speech. His voice changes from a calm tone to more of a strong and determined tone. He does this to leave his listeners with a lasting impression. Influencing congress if they haven 't already made up their mind to declare war on Japan. His choice of words in this section is very clear and precise. Again he brought up how this war was unprovoked and how Japan was the aggressor and monster. He came out and asked that Congress vote to declare war on Japan which made it very clear to the point of this …show more content…
You would expect a leader who 's nation just got back stabbed would be furious and his speech would be full of rage. But it 's the exact opposite, he has a vary calm but authoritative tone when he presented the speech to congress. The American people were already extremely outraged by the recent events. Volunteers were lining up all across the nation to help assure a victory for the USA. So he didn 't need to sound angry for this speech. He was prepared for the unavoidable war and was determined to lead the American people in this struggle. He used phrases like “the American people, in their righteous minds, will win through absolute victory.” Or “we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery will never endanger us again.” Calmly he made assure that congress and the people knew that the government with their help would stop this at all cost and more importantly would make sure that nothing like this could happen to us again. This would hint at the founding of the United Nations and the U.S.’s huge involvement into world affairs to make sure this doesn 't happen

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