Rhetorical Analysis Florence Kelley

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In Florence Kelley’s heart wrenching call for awareness of child labor she uses quite a few rhetorical devices. An anaphora is the most recognizable as she’s trying to nail in how she would could be helping the children. Pathos is another of her persuasion methods used in her tone. Kelley also uses a fair amount of imagery throughout the passage. First and foremost, Kelley’s use of an anaphora is what really pulls the audience’s attention. The use of “while we sleep” (Kelley), throughout the paragraphs of this speech drum in what the children are doing and brings attention to the supposed inaction of the adults. This statement could be a call to ethos as the adults are supposed to be better authority figures and bear the brunt of labor themselves. Another use of anaphora would have to be in paragraph nine as the word “We” is used, also trying for ethos as Kelley’s speaking to the audience full of adults. Furthermore, Kelley attempts to rouse the audience to emotion such as when she brings up the age of the children working “They vary in age from six to seven years…and eight, nine and ten years…to fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen years in more enlightened states” ( Kelley para 1). Kelley brings to our attention the fact some of …show more content…

“A girl of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the bobbins…” showing a visual of how young the girl must be and how over worked she is. Kelley as brings up the “…deafening noise” (Kelley para 3), of the spindles that the children are working on throughout the night just for “ribbons for us to buy” (Kelley para 3), bringing up the struggle of how common things are made and how the children suffer. Kelley sets up examples from all around the country as a way to rouse ethos in people as well. A way of saying “It’s not just a problem here, it’s a problem all over our nation” inadvertently sparking a sense of “we can do better” in the audience as