Rhetorical Analysis Of If I Were A Man

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“If I Were a Man” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Rhetorical Analysis Charlotte Perkin Gilman wrote a fictional short story, “If I Were a Man” in 1914 to explain male supremacy over women and the absurdity of gender roles in society. Jill Rudd and Val Gough, authors and professors in communication and English, stated in their book Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Optimist Reformer “the idea of gender and subordination based on gender [is] a central tenet” in Gilman’s writing (7). Gilman wrote “If I Were a Man” to help the progression of the women’s rights movement in 1914. Gilman’s audience comprises both men and women. She lets men see how women feel and how they should take a stand for the women. At the same time, she gives women a perspective on men’s feeling about women’s rights. Charlotte Gilman uses a variety of rhetorical devices in the short story to make her point that the establishment of societal gender roles causes the viewpoint of male supremacy over females. One of the first rhetorical devices that an audience may notice is Gilman’s unique pace and syntax that she uses to show the different minds of men and women. She uses a variety of sentences like “[w]himsical, capricious, charming, changeable, devoted to pretty clothes and always “wearing them well,” as the esoteric phase has it” (Gilman 1). This one sentence creates the uniqueness of Gilman 's writing; as this is not a traditional subject-verb sentence. In the first paragraph, her character is still a woman and