Rhetoric and Structure in Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms Speech
Question 2 • Twilight Session 1 (Fall 26): Literature and Composition I_CThompson
Read the excerpts from Roosevelt’s "Four Freedoms" speech and Lincoln’s "Gettysburg Address.”Roosevelt:This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them.Lincoln:Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
Answer
A
Equality is an important American value.
B
The future of America is largely unknown.
C
Freedom is only achieved through struggle.
D
Civil war is an evitable part of any nation.
Explanation
Both excerpts connect American ideals to freedom and human rights. Lincoln says the nation was founded on the idea that “all men are created equal,” while Roosevelt supports people struggling to gain or keep their rights. Together, these ideas show that equality is an important American value. Choice C goes too far: the excerpts mention struggles for rights but do not say freedom can only be achieved through struggle.
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