Rhetorical Analysis Of President Roosevelt's The Four Freedoms

In Lyndon B. Johnson’s speech The Great Society he is effective in showing that the society must work to build and achieve a great society. He is effective in showing this by giving examples of how to improve America by using rhetorical devices in his speech to create envisionments of the future in the society. By doing this he is effective in his speech to motivate people to participate and help develop this great society.

Convincing an audience of 133.4 million is a daunting task, especially when they must be convinced to join a war less than thirty years after World War I. On January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave the State of the Union Address that began his third term as president. This speech, broadcast across the United States on the radio, sparked the idea to join World War II even before Pearl Harbor was attacked. In this speech, he fully supports the English against the attack of the dictators trying to extinguish democracy across the world. He proposes the four freedoms that America is invested in protecting around the world: freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God in any way, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. In his speech, “The Four Freedoms,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt inspires nationalism and creates fear in his audience to convince them to join the war ravaging through Europe through many forms of metaphor and repetition.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected as the 32nd president of the United States in 1932, the third year of the worst economic depression in America's history. At the height of The Great Depression about 25% of America's workforce was unemployed, and the country was crying out for change. This is what he promised in the inaugural address he gave on March 3, 1933: change. He gave his speech to show the hearts and minds of the people of the USA that they will come back from this great hardship. Franklin Delano Roosevelt used a powerful yet sympathetic tone of voice, dramatic pauses for emphasis, and plan to change how the country operated, in his Inaugural Address to reassure the nation that they will come back from the Great Depression.

In the book, America’s Great War: World War I and the American Experience, Robert H. Zieger discusses the events between 1914 through 1920 forever defined the United States in the Twentieth Century. When conflict broke out in Europe in 1914, the President, Woodrow Wilson, along with the American people wished to remain neutral. In the beginning of the Twentieth Century United States politics was still based on the “isolationism” ideals of the previous century. The United States did not wish to be involved in European politics or world matters. The U.S. goal was to expand trade and commerce throughout the world and protect the borders of North America.

On June 6, 1941, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt made a speech that has since been known as “The Four Freedoms Speech.” In this speech, he outlines four freedoms he hopes every person in the world will obtain in the future. He identifies the four freedoms as the following: “...Freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world... freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world… freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world… freedom from fear — which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in November 1940 in the middle of the Great Depression. The stock market was in chaos, the world around us was in turmoil: Adolph Hitler was controlling Germany, France falling into the powers of Germany, Axis power almost had complete control of Europe. Many strongly opposed about not going to war but Roosevelt was trying to encourage the joining of the United States into World War 2. His speech “Four Freedoms” was giving 2 years after World War 2 had started, his significance in this announcement was

2,300 years ago, Aristotle founded the basic principle that almost every great speech since then has been written upon-the three persuasive appeals. Around 76 years ago, Franklin D. Roosevelt put these principles to practice himself; giving what is thought to be one of the most famous American political speeches of the 20th Century-his Infamy Speech. While the speech isn’t complex in neither wording nor depth, it has been analysed over and over again by scholars, politicians, historians, and the like for its direct and purposeful approach. Given the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, the speech had two purposes; to urge Congress to formally declare war on Japan (which

In “The Four Freedoms” speech President Roosevelt was speaking to the American people, the ones who had fear of the war that was being fought across the ocean. The

All of these freedoms emphasizes everyone's human rights. Giving the people what they want without threatening the country’s safety and status. Yet he goes on the mention that, “We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests” (Roosevelt 21). The purpose and meaning of freedom in this speech was that it provides people the opportunity given to exercise one's rights, powers, and

The devastating WWI left a permanent mark on the European soil, as well as in American people’s minds. People now understood what real wars are like; they are not always honorable, romantic or beneficial. As a result, isolationism ran high as the postwar United States entered the 1920s. Three presidents, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover all devoted themselves to domestic affairs starting from 1920 while trying their best to keep the country safe from the European turmoils. However, as the WWII erupted in Europe in the 1930s, president Franklin D. Roosevelt sensed the potential danger posed by Germany toward the United States. A series of changes in foreign policies from 1920 through 1941 marked the United

In 1933 history was changed for the better. Nineteen thirty three was an era where people were left devastated by the lost of many essentials that people today would take for granted. Eighty four years ago in Washington D.C the 32nd president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, gave his first inauguration speech before later serving four additional years to his country. Many of people were awaiting to hear his words spoken loud and clear stating that change was imminent with the assistance of hard work and dedication. The president’s aspiration was clearly presented as he was there to help improve their situation with plans to make things better. The purpose of president Hoover’s speech was to appeal to many through the use of pathos and ethos accompanied by his use of well known rhetoric devices such as amplification.

In Franklin Roosevelt’s message to the Congress, he brought up many ideas to fix the issues going on in the world. He founded the four human freedoms. The first is “of speech and expression for everywhere in the world. Second is freedom of every person to worship god in his own way. Next is Freedom from want. It will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for

Lastly, to end on something that both Kennedy, and Roosevelt would have agreed on, here is one of the four freedoms which Roosevelt wished upon the entire world, “The fourth freedom is freedom from fear-which, translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-anywhere in the world,” (F.D.R.

Since President Abraham Lincoln’s famous second inaugural address nearly 150 years ago it has been a long standing tradition for the President’s inaugural address to present a somewhat ambiguous claim for world transformation and diplomacy. President George W. Bush’s second inaugural address is no different. It set forth President Bush’s ambitious vision of the United States’ role in advancing of freedom, liberty, and democracy worldwide “with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world” (para. 7). In order to persuade his audience to adhere to his arguably over ambiguous goal, President Bush uses a rhetoric strategy that blends elements of ethos and pathos with specific word choice to