Rhetoric and Structure in Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms Speech — Quiz
Question 2 • Literature and Composition I
Read the excerpt from Roosevelt’s "Four Freedoms.” The fourth is 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. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb. Roosevelt includes the second paragraph to serve as a rebuttal for which counterclaim?
Answer
A
Joining the war will not keep America safe from attack.
B
A world free from fear is not possible in the near future.
C
Fighting one war to escape a future war is not logical.
D
Americans will be attacked if they do not join in the war.
Explanation
Roosevelt says that a world free from fear is “no vision of a distant millennium” and is attainable “in our own time and generation.” This directly rebuts the claim that such a world cannot be achieved in the near future, so the counterclaim is “A world free from fear is not possible in the near future.”
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