Injustices of Women of Color by Sojourner Truth in Speech, Ain't I Woman

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Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I Woman

In the speech “Ain’t I a Woman”, the Sojourner Truth delivered during the Women’s Convention of 1851, she speaks on the injustices that women and colored people endured during that horrible time in America. I will make an effort to explore the ways she utilizes rhetorical methods as a means to accomplish a victorious and compelling delivery of her message. In this analysis, I will talk about the way Sojourner draws on her own individual experiences evoke an emotional reaction from her audience, relating with the women and mothers equally. She also utilizes repetitive and rhetorical questioning in hopes to counter challenging opinions for gender equality. In the conclusion of her speech, Sojourner makes biblical allusions during her speech to relate with her Christian listeners and allowing the audience to relate with the message on a deeper level.

In the city of Akron, Ohio in the year 1851, Sojourner Truth gave a very touching speech at the Women’s Convention that would be remembered for its simplicity, genuineness, and compelling message. Sojourner Truth talked to the Women’s Convention about her personal encounters and difficulties as not only a woman during that time in society, but as an African-American woman. It was her own individual experiences and biblical allusions she used to bond with her listeners and make them respond on both an emotional and intimate scale. By talking about her personal experiences, using repetition in her speech, and making biblical allusions, Sojourner Truth bonds intimately with her listeners to successfully raise a impression of power to beat race and gender discrimination.

Sojourner creates a form of self as a victim of prejudice by revealing to us how she i...

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...the power of the universally known Christian character of the universe’s first female, Eve, Sojourner is ingeniously luring in every last person in the crowd so that they can sympathetically and individually connect with her proposition to obliterate injustice. She suggests the thought that if these ladies all work as a unity; there is no reason that they should not find success in what they are in search for for: equality for everyone.

Using many rhetorical methods to connect with her audience, Sojourner successfully conveyed the commanding message on the hypocritical, unfair nature, and ethical unfairness of gender and race discrimination. She psychologically influences her audience using personal stories, repetition, and biblical allusions as a means to effectively portray the discriminatory acts happening at that time and to successfully incite a need for change.

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