Sojourner Truth Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Submitted By Arden-Michel

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Michel 1
Arden Michel
Pamela Green
English 102
23, February 2015
Rhetorical Analysis : Questions to be Explored
● The purpose of this argument was to speak about the inequalities that women and blacks faced at that time in America. It was a persuasive and motivational speech arguing that women have just as much right as men do.
● The audience for this argument is for women, specifically black woman, and men who thought they were superior.
● This argument appeals to ethos, pathos and logos.
● Sojourner Truth is making the argument. Truth uses ethos to establish common ground with the white woman in her audience, she needed credibility because she was a black.
She says, “that little man in black there say a woman can't have as much rights as a man cause Christ wasn't a woman.” Truth become trustworthy as she expresses how she experiences the same sexism from men as do all women in that time.
● Truth uses pathos by saying, “I have born 13 children and seen most all sold into slavery and when I cried out a mother's grief none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?”
Truth uses personal experiences to get an emotional response from her audience, connecting with them as both women and mothers.
● Truth also uses logos. “Look at me Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns and no man could head me. And ain't I a woman? I could work as

Michel 2 much and eat as much as a man, when I could get to it, and bear the lash

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before the largest audience in her career. Wearing her uniform of the French Resistance, of which she was active in World War II, she was the only woman to address the audience. Sojourner Truth, a former slave and women’s rights activist, gave a speech entitled “Ain’t I a Woman?”, at the Women’s convention in 1851. Truth gave her speech to address her views on women’s rights and to advocate equal rights of men and women everywhere. Her short, powerful speech was…

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