Rhetorical Analysis Of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Speech

On the morning of December 7, 1941, the United States was attacked for the first time on home soil by the Japanese. Esteemed former president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, spoke to congress the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, in what would be his most renowned speech and one of the best speeches in American history. He spoke with the purpose of persuading his audience, the congress, to go to war with Japan. The tone of the speech is melancholic but forthright, which reveals the pain and sorrow felt by citizens and the need for an urgent response. In his speech, Roosevelt uses the rhetorical strategy pathos, in order to convince congress to his cause, through emotion. He does this through a series of steps: sadness, anger and call to action. For the first step he says “I regret to tell you (Congress) many lives have been lost” this of course creates a forlorn response from the audience, more than two thousand people died that day and almost all were soldiers. The second step he says “Japanese government deceived [The U.S.] with false statements for hope and peace” and he also states “It’s obvious the attack was deliberately planned”

He repeats last night a numerous amount of times in his speech. An example of this is when he says “last night Japanese attacked Hong Kong”, and “last night Japanese’s forces attacked Guam” and finally “last night the Japanese attacked wake island. He not only uses the Phrase last night four times, but he also uses it consecutively. He says this phrase numerously, in order to emphasize to congress how many times, and how easily japan has attacked a country, in the span of one night. This automatically suggests to congress that they should act quickly to stop japan, because it seems like japan is mounting an all-out offensive, while The United States has done nothing but mourn their loss. This persuades congress to take up arms against the