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Analysis of FDR's Speech to Congress the day after Pearl Harbor Bombing

Speech: December 8th, 1941

By Kim StambaughPublished 2 years ago 4 min read
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt utilized a monumental event that became pivotal in the United States involvement and initial push to enter World War II. This was a reactionary speech in answer to a very unexpected attack just hours after negotiations had been in progress to keep the Pacific theater at peace between the United States and Japan. This speech is emotionally charged using a strong ethos and ties to national pride and sovereignty. FDR wants to make sure that people understand the crucial necessity to react to this in an answer that will solidify as he states in his speech “our righteous anger” as a nation for this cowardly attack.

In 1941, The United States had yet to enter World War II even with allies requesting us to do so soon. We were needed if not with man power, with economic backing and military armament. In January during his State of the Union address, FDR had hinted that we needed to protect our freedoms with his famous “Four Freedoms” speech. He was addressing Congress and the nation via technology to start to think of how our democracy was being challenged based on it being challenged anywhere by oppressors worldwide. (Roosevelt 1941)

The audience was once again Congress, but this time there was a way to take the rhetorical situation and tie it back to historical events over the last 11 months since FDR’s Four Freedoms speech. He was able to take the situation and the essences of the moment and in a short history use key language and words that was a summation of his prophetic language used in January of the same year and create a connection for his audience. The live audience consisted of the same people that were present for his initial speech on freedoms. On December 8, 1941 he addressed the same audience on the House floor, but they were changed by historical events. The diplomats, the business men, and the law makers were seeing a situation differently now in light of all diplomatic processes that should have avoided this “dastardly” attack to quote Roosevelt in his Pearl Harbor speech one day after the Japanese attacked our navy forces.

The rest of the nation and probably the world for that matter, were unattached listeners, but ones that were either invaded, under the threat of invasion, or the economy had done its worst based on the Great Depression here in America. There was an interaction of national pride and democratic unity arising from this power packed speech. The close tie to historical events helps to shape the audience’s reaction to a call to action. (Griffin 1952)

The occasion was something that was a unifying thread for all those in the audience listening. There was a weak economy here in the United States, allies’ freedoms were being trampled on in Europe, and the final straw was a believed ally attacked us as our weakest, exposed point. The language and ethos that FDR uses is that to insight people into motion. This is an emotionally charged speech to cause a reaction of movement from the Congress level down to the volunteer militaristic movement level. We needed to get involved and this was the turning-point for us. Not only did this create a motion for Congress to openly declare war and be officially entrenched in World War II, it also gave citizenry a national pride that it was time for the United States to rise on the world stage as a force to be reckoned with.

In closing, FDR uses strong, simple language that is relational to his audience. He uses historical references and recent historical events to motivate movement and reaction from Congress and the nation. There is a sense of logos and ethos working together with emotional connection to his audience that one must rise, but the logos are the stated facts that diplomacy was tirelessly pursued to no avail. (Garry 2013) Using the “end of the road” verbiage through simile helps to create movement and devoted service to the cause of why we entered World War II. This strong speech was a summation of all that FDR had communicated over the 11 months thus far in 1941. As a strong orator known for 20 plus minute speeches, he summarized all of his aspects with language, body language, and situational representation into seven minutes of powerful movement and a call to action.

References

Garry, Clifford, j., and Masako R. Okura. “Side-Door Diplomacy: Herbert Hoover, FDR, and United States-

Japanese Negotiations, 1941.” Peace and Change, vol. 38, no 2, 2013, pp. 207-236.

Piehler, G. Kurt. “Allies in Memory: World War II and the Politics of Transatlantic Commemoration, c. 1941-

2001/The Cambridge History of the Second World War, Volume III: Total War: Economy, Society, and Culture/The Oxford Illustrated History of World War II.” Journal of World History, vol. 28, no. ¾, Dec. 2017, pp. 654-662. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1353/jwh.2017.0046.

Griffin, Leland M. “The Rhetoric of Historical Movements.” Quarterly Journal of Speech, vol. 38, no. 2, Apr. 1952,

P. 184. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00335635209381762.

Roosevelt, Franklin D., “The Four Freedoms Speech.” 6 January, 1941. Retrieved from following website:

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrthefourfreedoms.htm

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About the Creator

Kim Stambaugh

The Frontier is how you challenge your boundaries. There is nothing simple, normal, or wrote in life. We each have a path, and it's unique. Struggles and passions alike, how you live your life dictates the legacy that you will leave.

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