Rhetorical Analysis Of Sojourner Truth

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Nathaniel Jackson Ms. Klassen English 150-5 12 April 2024 Sojourner’s Truth: The Right to Vote for Women and Black People Sojourner Truth was a former slave and black woman who was a loud voice within the suffrage and abolitionist movements. One speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?,” is her most well known and discusses her personal struggle with being a black woman in the United States from 1800 to the time of said speech in 1851. She speaks eloquently and powerfully, getting her point across very well by explaining the hypocrisy surrounding her treatment versus that of white women, and the treatment of women as a whole versus the treatment of men. The argument that Sojourner is making within her speech is that both women and black people deserve the right to …show more content…

Masterfully, Sojourner uses literary devices to push her argument further than if she stated things plainly. The best example is what she says in her third paragraph, capping it off with an extended metaphor about how intellect is like cups, men having a larger one than women, that deserve to be shared. Furthermore, she compares her personal struggles to those of white women to show that white men are not the only advantaged group. The line that her speech is named for is from the section where this occurs. For example, she states “That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mudpuddles, or gives me any better place!” Not only does this put some fault on men, but it shows that she struggles more than a white woman would because she is black. Additionally, she uses a Biblical allusion to add punch to her argument, explaining that if one woman could completely change the world, many women should be able to do the

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