Rhetorical Analysis Of Ain T I A Woman

Introduction Sojourner gave the speech, “Ain’t I A Woman” on May 29, 1851 at the Woman’s rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. She gave this speech to address her views on women’s rights and to speak for equal rights for women, especially African American women. The goal of this paper is to criticize “Aint I a woman” rhetorically in terms of historical context, rhetorical situation, exigence, speaker, goal, audience, rhetorical problem, rhetorical strategies, and evaluation.

Historical Context The early 1850s were a turbulent point in history for minority groups, particularly African Americans and women. It was a time of rampant slavery, job discrimination, limited access to education, and lack of rights. During this time, tension was building

Slavery also became very politicized around this time. Sojourner Truth came forward to speak at the 1851 Women’s rights convention when the president of the convention, Francis Gage, was losing control of the crowd. Many of the people delegating the discussion were apprehensive about letting a black woman speak because they did not want the topic to stray from women’s rights and go into abolition. Gage eventually was able to turn the podium over to Truth. Her speech impacted the crowd right away. “The speech she delivered, Ain’t I a woman, had an immediate affect on the crowd, quelling the audience’s discontent and returning control of the convention to Gage”

“If my cup won’t hold a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?”( Lucaites 1992). When she says this, she is calling attention to the fact that men have all the power already, so why cant they let women have equal rights in America? This expresses Truth’s opinion that the ethically right thing to do is to let women have the same rights as men. Which is what she wanted her speech to accomplish in the first place. She used pathos by bringing up her motherhood. Often slave mothers would have their children taken from them to be sold into slavery. She told the audience how she bore many children and when she cried out when they were taken away, nobody but Jesus heard her (). This connects with the mothers in the audience, who would be saddened by the thought of children being taken from their mothers. This furthers her argument on abolition because it shows how she is a grieving mother as much as any white woman would be. It also connects her with all mothers present, both African American and