Rhetorical Analysis Of Pearl Harbor Address To The Nation

People did not think that we are going to have another World War after the Great War had ended until Hitler’s first invasion of Poland. Germany, Italy, and Japan joined on one side to fight against the Allied powers. In Asia, Japan wanted to expand their territories so they start invading other countries included China and Philippines. The Japanese admiral saw the U.S Navy Fleet in Hawaii as a threat to Japan. Therefore, on a Sunday of December 7, 1941, thousands of Japanese airplanes and battle ships attacked Pearl Harbor killed thousands of American lives. As a result, President Franklin Roosevelt gave a speech of “Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation” not only to the Congress, but also to all Americans the next day to urge Congress for a declaration on Japan and assemble American people to support the war effort. This speech was an effective speech due to the used of three elements of parallelism, pathos, and ethos.
According to YourDictionary, pathos is an appeal to emotion, and is a way of convincing an audience in an argument by creating the emotional response. With his intelligence and skills, pathos was being used successfully in the speech. First example of emotional appeal is when he said, “The American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” He said this phrase to make the audience as well as all Americans to feel patriotism to the country so that they would all support for the United States to going to war against the Japanese. He also made the people feel ashamed and angry when he said, “A date which will live in infamy.” He knew how to get their emotions by using the word “infamy”. Infamy means ashamed. It also means that the Americans would be ashamed for not react to what has happened to its country. By using these examples of the emotional element, F.D.R has succeeded in making his speech effectively and made the Americans understand his message of asking to go to