American Strikes Back

The year was 1941, the day December 7th. We had no idea that this day was going to be one of the most horrific days in the history of the United States of America.

The day after this attack President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a very inspiring speech that used an Aristotelian style of writing called "Pathos". He uses this particular style of writing to try and convince us to start war with Japan by getting to the audience emotionally. Aside from using Pathos he also uses Logos, and Ethos.

When he talks about how many places the Japanese are attacking within a short amount of time, he creates a sense of urgency to attack them as soon as possible. This would be considered pathos because it would cause the audience to worry and feel insecure about their living conditions. He does this on purpose because he knows that this will make congress lean towards starting war with Japan. Many great speech writers use pathos because they know this is the best way to get their point across or accomplished. Another great example of President Roosevelt using pathos is in this statement "The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American Naval and Military Forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. "This would most definitely cause an emotional distress in the audience.

The fact that he used pathos in his speech is no accident, he did it on purpose knowing that if he got to the audience through emotion he would more than likely have them be on his side, starting war with Japan, for example when he states "The casualty list at Pearl Harbor included 2,335 servicemen and 68 civilians killed, and 1,178 wounded."