Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Importance of rhetoric
Rhetorical analysis on a speech
Rhetorical analysis on a speech
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The way speeches, songs, quotes, mottos, and slogans are put out to Americans daily and influence how we see the things that have happened and are happening in the world. Throughout history, America has been greatly impacted by the way messages are sent to American people. People view words and sayings differently based on the person saying it and the audience. FDR’s speech, A Date Which Will Live in Infamy, seems like he wants Americans to want to go to war. Throughout the speech, he uses more emotional words or phrases like, “suddenly and deliberately attacked,” “deliberately planned,” and “premeditated invasion.” Those along with many other phrases follow the theme of “infamy”. FDR repeats “last night Japanese forces attacked…” multiple …show more content…
It draws more attention the words attacked and Japanese, so Americans would then associate Japanese people with bad things. A lot of Americans associated all Japanese-Americans with the Japanese people who attacked Hawaii, even though they didn’t have anything to do with the attack. FDR wants to get a big emotional response from Americans and from Congress. He tells the American people, “With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God,” which means he wants to go to war with Japan. Fighting back could make the issues between Japan and the US worse and more people would end up dying. The American people listened to what he had to say, even if it wasn’t 100 percent true. Americans …show more content…
They weren't allowed to eat in the same restaurant, “unless such and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher.” In today’s society, people of different races are allowed to eat wherever they want. Even though there are still a lot of people that are still racist towards African Americans, we’ve come along way in accepting them. African American and white people weren't allowed to “play together or in company with each other in any game game of cards or dice, dominoes or checkers.” If they were seen playing the same game, the African American person would be punished for being around the white person, not the other way around. These laws impacted how people lived their lives. African Americans lived in fear because they could get arrested or hurt over nothing. They were made out to be dangerous and people white Americans didn’t want to be
Groups of people soon received new rights. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act. It gave black Americans full citizenship and guaranteed them equal treatment. Also, it passed the Fourteenth Amendment to make sure that the Supreme Court couldn’t declare the Civil Rights Act unconstitutional. The amendment made blacks citizens of the United States and the states in which they lived. Also, states were forbidden to deprive blacks of life, liberty, or property without due process. Additionally, blacks could not be discriminated by the law. If a state would deprive blacks of their rights as citizens, it’s number of congressional representatives would be reduced. The Civil Rights Act as well as the Fourteenth Amendment affected both the North and the South.
During the early days of World War II, the United States remained officially neutral. It was not until the attack on Pearl Harbor, by the Japanese, that the United States had no choice, but to declare war. At the beginning of the war Japan won most of the battles (Gailey). These defeats resulted in the morale being low among the American troops. President Theodore Roosevelt wanted to boost morale and push forward the Pacific front with a strike on the Japanese homeland to serve as a testament to American military prowess and retribution for the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor (Shepherd).
Franklin Roosevelt struck people 's emotions with his patriotic and nationalistic quotes. “With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God.” This quote strikes at the hearts of Americans filling them with a sense of pride and determination. President Roosevelt makes it clear that no matter what other nations will do to the United States, the American people will be filled with resilience and rebound to make the nation as great and powerful as it ever was. When the President speaks about the attacks on Pearl Harbor, his tone creates a feeling of anger. The feeling of anger is created when he states that the Japanese launched this attack with no warning. The Empire of Japan had its ambassador and a colleague meeting with the Secretary of State to give them a message that they didn 't want to continue to negotiate with the United States. The message however showed no signs of the forthcoming attack on Pearl Harbor. The President also creates emotions in the audience by his use of tone and emphasis. His tone is stern yet caring showing that he believes in the American people. It also shows that while the United States was attacked, he has faith that the American troops, citizens, and government will rally behind him to terminate the
During 1941 many Americans were on edge as they became increasingly more involved in WWII. On December 7, 1941 the Japanese decided to take matters to their own hands. They attacked the naval base Pearl Harbor and killed 68 Americans in order to prevent the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with their military. After this surprise attack, the Americans officially entered the war, which caused many people to become paranoid (Baughman). Many people feared the Japanese because they thought they were spies for Japan, and because of this the Executive Order 9066 was signed and issued by FDR which sent many Japanese Americans to live in internment camps (Roosevelt). This caused the Japanese to become a scapegoat of America’s fear and anger. The Issei and Nisei who once moved to this country to find new opportunities and
Roosevelt states how the attack “caused severe damage to American naval and military forces.” He continues to state persuasive evidence to declare war on Japan, such as the fact that an hour after the bombing, the Japanese Ambassador and his colleague that was accompanying him, delivered a message that said that it was “useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations,” but “contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.” He states this to show that the Japanese deceived America, giving them false hope that maybe there would be peace, but in reality they were trying to lower America’s guard down. Roosevelt’s speech was so persuasive that only three days later, after Germany and Italy declared war on America, Congress declared war on Japan, thus ushering in World War
The social conditions throughout the era were extremely poor. Legal discrimination was around and African Americans were denied democratic rights and freedoms. The southern states would pass strict laws to normalize interactions between white people and African Americans. For example, Jim Crow signs were placed above regularly visited places by everyone, such as water fountains, public facilities, door entrances and exits, etc. Even the most basic rights such as drinking from a water fountain was taken away from African Americans. They would also have separate buildings for African
Even though slaves had been free for almost sixty years, it was still hard to find well paying jobs in other areas nationwide. The lives of African Americans were so well established, the area was coined the “Black Wall Street of America”. You’d think with such well-rounded men and women that something like this would not happen just based on their skin tone, but that is far from true. Whites of the time were still extremely prejudice towards African Americans, despite the reputation they had. It was only a matter of time before something ignited the flame that had been burning for years.
Times were looking up for African Americans, their new freedom gave them the option to go down a road of either criminal actions or to make something out of themselves. But the presence of racism and hatred was still very much so alive, Klu Klux Klan, although not as strong as they were after the Civil War was still present. Laws like Jim Crow laws and “separate but equal” came into play and continued to show how racism was alive. Besides these actors of racism, blacks still started gaining a major roll in American society.
They faced something perhaps worse than slavery; plagued with the threat of being lynched or beat for walking at the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite the addition of the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Bill of Rights, which were made to protect the citizenship of the African-American, thereby granting him the protection that each American citizen gained in the Constitution, there were no means to enforce these civil rights. People found ways to go around them, and thus took away the rights of African-Americans. In 1919, racial tensions between the black and white communities in Chicago erupted, causing a riot to start. This resulted from the animosity towards the growing black community of Chicago, which provided competition for housing and jobs.
World War II was a time of heightened tension. The entire world watched as fascism and dictatorships battled against democracy and freedom in the European theater. The United States looked on, wishing to remain neutral and distant from the war. On December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked by the Japanese, officially drawing the U.S. into the war. Thousands of young sailors died in the attack and several U.S. Navy vessels were sunk. The attack marked the beginning of the United States’ involvement in World War II as well as the beginning of the persecution of Japanese Americans in the U.S. Hysteria and outrage increased across the country and largely contributed to the authority’s decision to act against the Japanese. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, allowing the military to place anyone of Japanese lineage in restri...
The laws known as “Jim Crow” were laws presented to basically establish racial apartheid in the United States. These laws were more than in effect for “for three centuries of a century beginning in the 1800s” according to a Jim Crow Law article on PBS. Many try to say these laws didn’t have that big of an effect on African American lives but in affected almost everything in their daily life from segregation of things: such as schools, parks, restrooms, libraries, bus seatings, and also restaurants. The government got away with this because of the legal theory “separate but equal” but none of the blacks establishments were to the same standards of the whites. Signs that read “Whites Only” and “Colored” were seen at places all arounds cities.
“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” Followed up on December 8, 1941 the president at the time, Franklin D. Roosevelt, gave the famous “A day that will live in infamy” speech. As Roosevelt gave this speech he did it to address congress with the purpose to ask them to declare a war on japan (which they did almost immediately), as well as to get American to support the war. Through his speech FDR uses vivid language to portray the emotions Americans should feel, repetition of Japan so it is known that they are the enemy, and a call to action to both Americans and congress so that war could be declared.
FDR uses pathos to connect with the audience on a personal level, but more importantly to influence the listeners. FDR uses emotional appeal effectively by his particular choice in words and the tone of his voice during the delivery. While presenting, he showed anger, sorrow, and patriotism, standing as a representative of the United States, while relating with each individual American. First he says that America was ‘suddenly and deliberately attacked’, sparking the audience’s anger as they realize America was targeted with no warning. He then states that America was deceived and ‘under the impression that [Japan's] emperor [was] looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific’. This makes the listener conclude that the United States was the innocent victim, while making Japan look corrupt and strongly disliked for attacking unexpectedly. FDR then goes on to repeatedl...
A major rhetorical choice President Roosevelt incorporated into his moving speech was anaphora. After he explained the country’s relationship with Japan before the attack, and after he explained the devastating results of the attack, he starts to list off in a very structured order the other countries Japan chose to attack, using almost a formulaic approach: “Last night, Japanese forces attacked…” The reason he chooses to repeat the same structured phrases repeatedly is to grab the attention of the audience and to make them feel outraged. It shows who
It wasn’t easy being an African American, back then they had to fight in order to achieve where they are today, from slavery and discrimination, there was a very slim chance of hope for freedom or even citizenship. This longing for hope began to shift around the 1950’s. During the Civil Rights Movement, where discrimination still took place, it was the time when African Americans started to defend their rights and honor to become freemen like every other citizen of the United States. African Americans were beginning to gain recognition after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, which declared all people born natural in the United States and included the slaves that were previously declared free. However, this didn’t prevent the people from disputing against the constitutional law, especially the people in the South who continued to retaliate against African Americans and the idea of integration in white schools....