Rhetoric in Great Speeches
Rhetoric in Great Speeches
Introduction – Cultural / Ideological Analysis
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) is credited by objective scholars and historians as having brought the United States out of the Great Depression, and as having guided the United States through the difficult and dangerous period during World War II. FDR was fiercely challenged by members of Congress when he was working to dig the country out of the Great Depression with his "New Deal." Members of Congress attacked FDR's programs as "socialism" – these attacks – using "socialism" as a hot-button word to stir up the population – were quite similar to what the current U.S. president, Barack Obama was accused of as he battled to win legislative approval of his signature healthcare reforms, the Affordable Healthcare Act. Along the way to achieving his goals to get the country on a financially even keel and to defeat Hitler and the Japanese, FDR's leadership was bolstered by his well-crafted speeches to the country.
Thesis
Many historians and scholars have posited that FDR's performance as president during the Great Depression and throughout most of World War II achieved levels of success beyond what any president ever faced before or after. One of the pivotal reasons he was so remarkably effective as president was that his speeches were extraordinarily well written and presented. FDR's speeches were designed to have great influence on the citizenry, and they certainly did. He used the power of his position as president – embracing ethos in the sense of asserting his absolute credibility – and he indeed achieved the credibility he demanded. In fact by originating the "fireside chat" – radio addresses that had a home-town tone but came from a lofty rhetorical authority – he presented truth, sincerity, and solution-based themes.
Lu Lemon the Contemporaneous Society
The contemporaneous society is now faced with tremendous challenges, such as the aging of the population, the decaying state of the natural environment, the economic crisis, the decreasing state of human health and so on. At the level of human health, problems are raised by the modern day sedentary life style and inadequate nutrition, which favor diseases. In such a context, the population seeks to return to its original and simpler life style of simple and healthy foods, and exercise.
Literary Criticism of the Works of William Wells Brown
The paper is a literary criticism drawing literature from the works of the Afro-American author, William Wells Brown. The writings, the President's Daughter (1853) and A Tale of the Southern States (1864) provides relevant information for completion of the paper. In addition, the paper offers an overview of William Browns Biography.