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Rhetorical Analysis Of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's First Inaugural Speech

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt 's First Inaugural address was delivered on March 4th, 1933, the speech was written by Columbia law professor Raymond Moley. When Roosevelt was elected in 1932 the Great Depression was in full swing, it was the worst economic crisis in American history. Roosevelt was succeeded by Herbert Hoover and just eight months into Hoover 's term, the stock market crashed. Around 45% of banks in America had failed and due to this millions of people were seeking employment, and if they were not unemployed they were working extremely low paying jobs. The initial drop of the stock market caused extreme chaos, over twelve million shares were traded on October 24th, 1929, or Black Thursday. The following Monday the entire stock …show more content…
Roosevelt uses the passive voice to take the blame off of himself when he says, “Taxes have risen” (Roosevelt paragraph four line two). Using the passive voice redirects attention from the speaker to the action, it also allays the audiences aggressiveness towards the speaker (Heinrichs 96). Roosevelt heavily uses pathos in this section, he appeals to pathos by invoking God and then uses personal pronouns to make the speech more personable. Personal pronouns aid in making the audience feel included and further immerses them in the moment. In the fifth paragraph, Roosevelt uses patriotism to consolidate the audience, patriotism also does a wonderful job of looking into the future and it attaches a strong feeling to an action all while bringing the group together (Heinrichs 89 and 95). Along with patriotism, Roosevelt uses a fortiori when speaking about our predecessors faced, “Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered, because they have believed and were not afraid, we have still much more to be thankful for”, a fortiori uses existing confidence and pride from the first situation, which is perceived as more onerous, then transferred to the current situation, it also downplays the current situation making the audience more likely to agree to tackle it (Heinrichs 385). Roosevelt uses the past tense in the sixth …show more content…
economy was in the worst condition it had ever been in, but he proved to the american citizens that they could work through it together. He compared the people to an army, and compared the great depression to a war that they were fighting, every next step he suggested, he phrased as a battle attack. Roosevelt also made many biblical references during his speech, this further connected him with the audience. Roosevelt emphasized certain words that leave the audience remembering those words, he uses pragmatics to have the audience feel better and trust him more. Speeches this powerful stay powerful and as emotionally moving over time because of their skilled use of rhetoric and language that produces successful results time and time

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