Rhetorical Analysis Of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's Speech

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a well-known spokeswoman and feminist. As a member of the Women’s Rights movement, she conveyed the message of equality and called for social and political reform in a democratic society. Her notoriously bold words in the Seneca Falls Convention deemed her courageous to some, while others saw her as a menace. However, her expressive and eloquent word choice enabled her to convey her message to a diverse and divided audience. Thereby empowering her voice to communicate the dissatisfaction she and other women felt, as she used rhetorical devices such as repetition, juxtaposition, irony, and parallelism throughout the Keynote Address speech to argue the issue of equality. Through the use of repetition, Ms. Stanton

By repeating the words “we” and “our” (1) Cady Stanton is able to appeal to her audience thereby increasing her credibility. She includes herself throughout the speech in hopes to unify the women of America so they may realize the world in which they inhabit and calls upon them to join the movement. However, Ms. Stanton does not include the males in her speech which may arouse questions of how she hopes to accomplish her goal without them, taking into consideration that they inhabit a patriarchal society. Nonetheless, Ms. Stanton assures her audience of who she is attempting to unify, which clearly, are the women. Furthermore, by identifying who Ms. Stanton is addressing in her speech allows for the audience to understand why she repeatedly used “we” and “our” throughout her speech. Her motives can clearly be seen as a means to increase her credibility, because this was the first convention held to address such a contentious matter. Addressing such an issue in a conservative society, where traditional values or beliefs are held on to, issues such as the ones presented by Ms. Stanton aren’t

Stanton describes the silly accusations the men have made by stating that they don’t intend “to make our husbands just, generous, and courteous, to seat every man at the head of a cradle, and to clothe every woman…” (1) She restates how absurd these accusations are, to possibly evoke emotion within the women. By doing this she reveals what and how the men think of the women in order to cause women to reflect on their role as well as realize how they are viewed in society. Stanton explains the perception the men have of them and illustrates how the men take into an offense that women imitate their mere attire and even perform the tasks that are deemed as only for women. Stanton reasserts her purpose of this convention which is to unify the women placed in the private sphere and accomplish what is deemed as preposterous. Furthermore, the use of this rhetorical device allows for Ms. Stanton to later address the right they have to vote in a democratic country. Stanton lists the instruments, “the pens, the tongues, the fortunes, the indomitable wills..” (Stanton 7) which have been pledged to secure this right. By using parallelism in this context, not only does it allow for the speech to transition smoothly and eloquently but also permits Ms. Stanton to emphasize how unified and determined the women have decided to become perhaps to show that their perseverance will be rewarded