Abigail Adams Letter Rhetorical Analysis

To her son John Quincy Adams, who is going abroad with his father, Abigail Adams writes a letter. Ordinarily, she wants her son to keep growing, learning, and immersing himself in the culture to make him a better person and leader. Using inspiring diction and shifts in the tone she keeps him intrigued and empowered. The perfect amount of each is used to help her son feel more confident in himself and his journey.

Adams models inspiring diction in her letter to appeal to pathos, and make her son feel empowered, confident, and willing to learn. Abigail proposes that “you are favored with superior advantages under the instructive eye of a tender parent, your improvements should bear some proportion to your advantages,” and suggests that even though her son has advantages he still has to improve, and he should value his improvements. This persuades him to keep learning and growing, and also states that “qualities, which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form …show more content…
Thoroughly organizing this by saying “you appeared so averse to the voyage,” and in contrast, says “you however readily submitted to my advice.” Another example of this is when she goes from saying “the hero and the statesman,” to saying words like “war, tyranny, and desolation.” These shifts to keep her son inspired, confident, and wanting to read more of what his mother wrote to him.

In conclusion, Abigail Adams illustrates the perfect amount of inspiring diction and shifts in tone to keep her son interested, inspired, and assured about his journey to learn new things.

Being the best he can be is what she wants for her son, and she cares for him deeply. She hopes he will become the great man she knows he can be, and is “supremely happy.” Even if he wasn’t sure he wanted to go on this voyage, she wishes that he comes back with knowledge and great

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