A Left Hand Address Rhetorical Analysis Essay

A women can only succeed if she acts like a man: many women develop with this statement or feel it to be correct. One such woman, novelist Ursula K. Le Guin, wrote “A Left-Handed Commencement Address,” spoken at Mills College in 1983, and she argues that women shouldn’t be “bounded” by man. In “A Left-Handed Commencement Address,” Ursula K. Guin empowers women to live like a woman through the use of credibility, logos, and emotional appeal.
In her speech, Guin uses credibility to strengthen her ethos appeals, as well as her ideals. In the 5th paragraph of “A Left-Handed Commencement Address” she states “Well, we're already foreigners. Women as women are largely excluded from, alien to, the self-declared male norms of this society, where human beings are called Man, the only respectable god is male, the only direction is up.” Guin saying “we’re” in her speech gives her more credibility than many believe, by

She notes that “you are human beings you are going to meet failure.” and then adds “you will find yourself - as I know you already have - in dark places, alone, and afraid.” Following up these comments she explains that she hopes “you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in a place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign.” Her goal here is to first bring in negative emotion by connotation or emotionally-charged words that create a vivid image, “failure, dark, alone, afraid, etc.” After the audience is in the “dark place” she then guides them while in “dark place” by stating “you will be able to live there” and once they can live there, the audience is now motivated to start. The audience now feels an emotional appeal to Le Guin because she gave you guidance and the need to achieve. By giving these emotional appeals she further lets her build her argument that women should live like a