Rhetorical Analysis Pearl Harbor Speech

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Pearl Harbor Address December 8th, 1941 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt attempted to incite action into a nation of troubled Americans after a sudden Japanese onslaught. In his address to congress given the day after the Japanese bombings was a request for a declaration of war upon Japan. Roosevelt created a speech that was dramatic, sufficient, and to the point therefore, understandable to the nation of worried Americans. The purpose of his speech was to clearly present the details of the attack, reveal the Japanese threat along the Pacific, and to thrust America into military action, which successfully led to the United States declaring war with Japan. Throughout the United States, American citizens were still reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor. Most Americans were probably confused and wanted answers to whom and why the…show more content…
In his speech, Roosevelt gives the American people the specifics on the Pearl Harbor bombings in a direct and efficient manner. Roosevelt immediately grasped the public’s attention by revealing the attacker and used strong words in the first sentence of his speech, stating “Yesterday, December 7th, 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”. The use of the…show more content…
He was able to inform, explain, and rally a concerned nation through strong diction and direct statements. The speech was extremely important to world history because it was the declaration of war with Japan that eventually linked the United States into World War ll. Roosevelt successfully produced the purpose of his speech by the way he presented the details of the attack, revealed the Japanese threat along the Pacific, and pushed America into military action. As a result the speech did what Roosevelt intended it to do, make
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