Rhetorical Analysis I Want A Wife

“I belong to that classification of people known as wives, I am A Wife. And, not altogether incidentally, I am a mother’’. This quote stated by Judy Brady from the essay, “Why I Want a Wife”, shows that a wife and a mother are just as important as everyone else. Judy Brady feels that wives are not acknowledged enough from all the hard work they do. Judy Brady shows that wives are important and underappreciated by using rhetorical devices such as ethos, sarcasm, and exaggeration. Ethos is one of the rhetorical strategies that was used throughout the essay. Ethos establishes credibility to let the audience know they can trust the author. One example of this strategy is in the first paragraph: “I belong to that classification of people known

Sarcasm is used to mock something. For example, in paragraph three the author states, “It may mean a small cut in my wife’s income from time to time, but I guess I can tolerate that” (229). The author used this sarcasm to show the audience that a wife’s work is not as important as a husband’s work. It shows that a wife works just as much as the husband does, but the wife still has to take care of the children after work. When the audience reads this sentence, some wives can relate to what is being said. The audience will then remember what it felt like when this happened to

Exaggeration is used to make a situation seem worse than what it actually is. In paragraph four, Brady starts off talking about reasonable wife duties and then she starts to exaggerate toward the end: “I want a wife to go along when our family takes a vacation so that someone can continue to care for me and my children when I need a rest and change of scene” (229). The author uses this exaggeration to show that husbands can not do everything by themselves, so they need a wife to do these responsibilities for them. She is showing that husbands always depend on the wives to take care of themselves and the children. As the audience reads this paragraph, they comprehend as to what it feels like to be a wife in a situation like this. They know that wives usually have the responsibility of grocery shopping and keeping the house clean, but not taking care of the whole family all the time. Wives then can relate to what it feels like to have to work all the time and not be able to relax with their