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How to perform a rhetorical analysis
How to perform a rhetorical analysis
How to perform a rhetorical analysis
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“I Want a Wife”
“Write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies Judy Syfers uses to achieve her purpose.
Judy Syfers essay “I Want a Wife” is a perfect example of a feminist. Syfer gives her insight about the traditional gender roles for a woman in society. Syfer refers to the mans perspective on marriage to compose this essay, she provides specific details on what a wife should do. Throughout her paper, she emphasizes how a woman and a man should share the burden of the household. Syfer uses many rhetorical strategies to achieve her purpose on why she “wants a wife”. She uses pathos and anaphora to point her views to the audience.
Syfers gives her views on how women are inferior to men and how they are mainly just a servant.
An effective rhetorical device that helps Judy Syfer achieve her purpose is pathos. Syfers wants the audience to understand why she’s angry because of what the society expects the women’s role to be. For instance, “I want a wife who will remain sexually faithful to me… who understands that my sexual need may entail more than strict adherence to monogamy” (Syfers). Syfer is showing pathos in this quote, because she doesn’t think wives are being treated equally to their husbands. Its saying that men want the women to be completely faithful but, when it comes to them it wouldn’t matter if their faithful or not. Syfers says how women are being treated unfairly and that their husbands are demanding too much from them.
Olson, Annie. “An Introduction to Rhetoric.” Le Tourneau U, May 2006. Web. 6 Dec. 2011.
Until the last hundred years or so in the United States, married women had to rely on their husbands for money, shelter, and food because they were not allowed to work. Though there were probably many men who believed their wives could “stand up to the challenge”, some men would not let their wives be independent, believing them to be of the “inferior” sex, which made them too incompetent to work “un-feminine” jobs. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, feminist writers began to vent their frustration at men’s condescension and sexist beliefs. Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers” and Zora Neale Hurson’s “Sweat” both use dialogue to express how women are capable of and used to working hard, thinking originally, being independent
Even before this event, the struggles of women in society were surfacing in the media. Eliza Farnham, a married woman in Illinois during the late 1830s, expressed the differing views between men and women on the proper relations between a husband and wife. While Farnham viewed a wife as being “a pleasant face to meet you when you go home from the field, or a soft voice to speak kind words when you are sick, or a gentle friend to converse with you in your leisure hours”, a recently married farmer contended that a wife was useful “to do [a man’s] cookin and such like, ‘kase it’s easier for them than it is for [men]” (Farnham, 243).
Judy Brady’s essay “I Want a Wife” uses a sarcastic tone in order to illuminate the amount of much pressure that is put on wives, not just by their husbands, but by society as well. Brady’s tone voices to the audience that changes need to be made to the role of women.
The industrialization of the nineteenth century was a tremendous social change in which Britain initially took the lead on. This meant for the middle class a new opening for change which has been continuing on for generations. Sex and gender roles have become one of the main focuses for many people in this Victorian period. Sarah Stickney Ellis was a writer who argued that it was the religious duty of women to improve society. Ellis felt domestic duties were not the only duties women should be focusing on and thus wrote a book entitled “The Women of England.” The primary document of Sarah Stickney Ellis’s “The Women of England” examines how a change in attitude is greatly needed for the way women were perceived during the nineteenth century. Today women have the freedom to have an education, and make their own career choice. She discusses a range of topics to help her female readers to cultivate their “highest attributes” as pillars of family life#. While looking at Sarah Stickney Ellis as a writer and by also looking at women of the nineteenth century, we will be able to understand the duties of women throughout this century. Throughout this paper I will discuss the duties which Ellis refers to and why she wanted a great change.
Throughout the texts we have read in English thus far have been feminist issues. Such issues range from how the author published the book to direct, open statements concerning feminist matters. The different ways to present feminist issues is even directly spoken of in one of the essays we read and discussed. The less obvious of these feminist critiques is found buried within the texts, however, and must be read carefully to understand their full meaning- or to even see them.
The rhetorical analysis played a role in this, because I was required to use the various rhetorical appeals to compose a strong argument. Using the appeals definitely helped in trying to persuade the reader to acknowledge the opposing view.
Feminism is motivated by the need to establish equality between the genders since most feminists attribute women’s problems to inequality between the two genders. Therefore, by way of a collection of political movements and social theories, feminists seek to curb this inequality between men and women. It is important to note that the equality sought after by feminists is not just economic and political, but also social equality. According to Heather Gilmour, The institution of marriage during the pre-modern era or the Victorian era was based on inequality as the roles to be fulfilled by both genders for the success of the marriage were essentially different (Heather 26). As the roles kept changing over time due to different circumstances, so did the expectations of marriage and along with that, the rise of feminist movement. Screwball comedies such as It...
First of all, in the essay, “I Want a Wife”, Judy Syfers exposes the meaning of “wife” presently in our society. Her argument is based on the premise that all wives are completely devoted to their husbands and are willing to tend to all their needs and satisfy them completely while working, being a good mother, and remaining gorgeous. Syfers reveals her definition of a wife in a very sarcastic and frustrated manner. Also, the style of the whole paper is very ironic. Almost as if she is screaming, she concludes her essay with, “My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?”(pg.648, 11). The cultural values portrayed in this essay are the value of control and the value of wanting to be loved. The value of control is portrayed in our society by the husband having the control and power over his wife. Because of that control, t...
Gloria Steinem, a journalist and activist, identifies the purpose of a feminist who “is anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men.” In other words, feminism is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. Discrimination against women has been going on for decades. Donald Hall’s Literary and Cultural Theory explains that the “Key to feminist analysis is recognition of the different degrees of social power…” (199). Meaning that depending on the social power, women can be treated differently. Nevertheless, women in society are like cows; they are branded in a way where they are seen as property owned by men. Women are labeled as “weak and sensitive” but when they stand up for their rights and make a decision; they are seen as crazy human beings whose expressed thoughts are misunderstood as nonsense. There are women from past history or even our modern world today that made a change to earn their respect and obtain their rights as women. For example, Mary Wollstonecraft; who supported the feminist movement through the struggle for female suffrage. In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and “The Story of an Hour.” Including Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper” we are introduced to three female characters who have realized how much their world has been controlled by their own husbands. It alludes to them as “beginning to realize [their] position in the universe as a human being and to recognize [their] relations as an individual to the world within and about [them]” (Chopin15). These protagonists made changes to show society that women should earn recognition not for what they are believed to b...
Monique Wittig, a radical feminist, illuminates, “For what makes a woman is a specific social relation to a man, a relation that we call servitude”. The concept of justifying the female inferior image based on biology and the ‘w...
The portrayal of gender in this text shows the husband as the prime breadwinner of the household while the wife stays home to clean the house and tend for the children. This is clearly our traditional family lifestyle of a household. Now although this can be considered traditional, we clearly see this lifestyle outdated in our twenty-first century society today. The text is demonstrated to show the young daughter her place in society, and teach the young girl the everyday tasks she will need to know in order to run a household smoothly and successfully. It is also clear that the mother’s life reflects all of these ideals that a husband should be the one working and the wife is to be happy and content by taking great pride and satisfaction in the caring for her home. The mother also has strong view on the behavior for a women in society and throughout the story gives many warning on her daughters behavior such as “on Sundays try and walk like a lady and not like the slut you are so bent on becoming”. (Kincaid 56) This is a clear statement from the mother tha...
Jochild, Maggie. Feminism Unadulterated: Why I Want Wife. 5 April 2008. 27 February 2014. .
Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” shows in society how a woman should be placed and what it means to be a woman. A women doesn’t question her partner, instead she is subservient to him. A woman’s duties include staying at home taking care of the children and cooking; while the man works and brings home the money. A feministic approach to Kincaid’s “Girl” points to the idea of the stereotypes that women can only be what they do in the home, they should only be pure and virtuous, and their main focus should be satisfying their husband.
Women have always been essential to society. Fifty to seventy years ago, a woman was no more than a house wife, caregiver, and at their husbands beck and call. Women had no personal opinion, no voice, and no freedom. They were suppressed by the sociable beliefs of man. A woman’s respectable place was always behind the masculine frame of a man. In the past a woman’s inferiority was not voluntary but instilled by elder women, and/or force. Many, would like to know why? Why was a woman such a threat to a man? Was it just about man’s ability to control, and overpower a woman, or was there a serious threat? Well, everyone has there own opinion about the cause of the past oppression of woman, it is currently still a popular argument today.