Rhetorical Analysis Of Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth is one of the world’s most known women’s rights advocates. Her birth name was Isabella and she was born in 1799 in New York to her parents, who were both slaves. Isabella was moved from family to family throughout her life, being a slave for as long as she could remember, but she remained with the Dumont family for seventeen years out of her life (Painter). Isabella married young and did something that was never done before: sued a member of the Dumont family for the illegal selling of her son and won him back (Painter). Even early in her life, Isabelle was destined for great things; she left everything behind, including her husband, and moved to New York to become emancipated, which is where she began to closely follow

Her emotions are shown throughout the whole speech and her background of being in slavery for most of her life shows that the topic of equal rights for women is very important to her. Sojourner Truth uses rhetorical questions to get her point across that all women are equal. “I could work and eat as much as a man- when I could get it- and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman?” (Young 123). Her rhetorical question of “And ain’t I a woman?” is used throughout her speech and this demonstrates her point that she should be treated equal to any other human being because she can achieve the same as any man or woman. Her emotions towards women’s rights are shown when she engages the audience in her speech. “They talk about this thing in the head: what’s it called? [A member of the audience calls out, “intellect”] That’s it, honey! What’s that got to do with women’s or negroes’ rights?” (Young 123). Her point in this statement is that she does not understand if all people have intellect, why are women, in particular, treated differently than me; a person is a person no matter what. By engaging the audience, Truth grabs the attention of the people listening to her speech and they get emotionally invested in it, just like the speaker. The use of repetition in Sojourner’s speech displays how her sermon was an emotional appeal

Because of Truth’s background as an African American woman slave with little rights, the equality of women applied to her life and she was able emotionally invest in the speech since equality was something she wanted in her own life. By speaking about something that applied to her, Truth was able to connect to her audience and really show how important the topic of women’s rights is. Sojourner Truth was successful in using an emotional appeal to connect with her audience because they felt more united to her since it was evident of how important women equality was to her. By using repetition and rhetorical questions, Sojourner Truth proved her point to her listeners and got them thinking about what she was saying. The rhetorical questions and repetition highlighted the important points she was trying to make in her speech and by using those strategies, Truth’s point was successfully made and clear to the spectators. Her speech was short and clear to understand, making it apparent Sojourner knew what she was talking about. Since the sermon was short and to the point, Truth was able to get her point across quickly, making it easy for the audience to follow and get engaged. Sojourner Truth was very successful when giving her Ain’t I a Woman speech at the Women’s Rights