Mother's Plea: Seeking Compassion from Saddam Hussein

568 Words2 Pages

With her son’s life hanging in the balance, Mary Ewald conveys the importance of setting her son free to her audience, President Saddam Hussein, by telling him personal facts, making her son seem harmless and appealing to the leader’s religion and way of life. Ewald keeps a matter of fact and informatory tone in the first the paragraphs before switching to a more desperate and pleading tone at the end to really convey the importance of letting her son go.
Mary Ewald tries to personalize her plea to Saddam Hussein by telling him about her and her husband’s life and relationship with Arabia. She speaks about how her husband worked under President Eisenhower and helped pause “the French, British and Israelis to pull out of Suez.” She also suggests that her, herself is suggests that her herself is a friend of the Arabs by describing how she set up a meeting at a Washington Mosque “to explain Muslim culture.” Telling Hussein about how she has “sent my youngest, well-loved son to work an Arab country.” Which helps make the issue less political and more human. Using personal details about her son and his family makes her son seen like a boy frim a good home that was in the …show more content…

Throughout the second paragraph Ewald lists how she and her husband have “been a friend to the Arabs.” She mentions that her husband is “Tom’s Father” which tells that she has stayed with Tom’s father which is more common in the Middle East than in the West where divorce was common. The largest plea to religious beliefs come in the last sentence where Ewald emphasizes that she begs “in the name of Allah, let my son go.” She really wants Saddam Hussein to know that he doesn’t just owe her and her so his freedom he owes his good her son’s freedom. Religion is very important in his culture and she makes a power play implying that keeping her son against his

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