Rhetorical Analysis Of Sojourner Truth

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According to Sojourner Truth, women are just as equal to men and they should have just as many rights and privileges as any man. She draws a picture of her equality to men by professing her strength and hard-working efforts. Right away, Truth’s first goal is to establish a sense of identity and relationship with her audience. She describes events where she has faced discrimination as a black woman to trigger an emotional response. Truth juxtaposes the ideal way man says women should be treated with her own personal reality saying, “Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me the best place!” By presenting the existence of this hypocrisy, she invites the audience to realize potential injustices in their own lives, which …show more content…
Immediately Truth is able to establish this connection with them as she understands that they will most likely relate and respond more positively to her stance on gender equality. One specific example, “Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.”, she gave reference to this specific parable from the Bible because she wanted her audience, the men specially to realize that women have a purpose, a very important role in society not only because women can give life to MAN, but maybe God intended for women to be equal or maybe even just as important as the man. Foreshadowing her speech’s focus on equality, Truth opens with the loaded word “children”. Addressing her audience as “children,” which is thought to be a very warm and welcoming term that defines a natural connection between her and the audience. Not only can this word be thought to convey ideas of motherhood, but it can also be associated to the biblical concept of all humans as “God’s children” who are created equal and in the image of God.” In this same sentence she notes, “where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter”, pointing out her intention of seeking peace …show more content…
She makes the claim that, “If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!” By referencing the strength of the world’s first woman, Eve, creatively Truth is compelling each member of her audience to the point that they too can identify with her proposition to fight injustice. She contends that if women all work together, they have the power to make an impact on the community. That there is no reason that they should not achieve what they are looking for: equal