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Rhetorical Devices In Polly Baker Speech

86 Words1 Pages
Within the incisive “Polly Baker’s speech,” Benjamin Franklin satirizes the patriarchal structure of the judicial system that unfairly judges women. Franklin utilizes a sardonic persona of a “poor” 18th century women being “persecuted for the fifth time, for having a bastard child” who only wants her “fine remitted.” Through his judicious use of hyperbole and his persona’s rhetorical conditional statements, Franklin produces a sarcastic tone in Polly Baker’s speech and ridicules the “great men” who enforce the institutionalized bias against women under the rule of law.
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