Rhetorical Analysis On Florence Kelley

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his bold novel, The Scarlet Letter tackles a variety of themes that include: sin, guilt, redemption, postfeminism, and organized religion's abuse of power. Hawthorne spoke in a somber and grim tone, designed to arouse a sense of suspense for his readers. The audience in which he was addressing would have been conservative Christians and women suffragettes, all of whom reflected the ideologies during this time period. By instilling clever diction, Hawthorne exposes hypocrisy in Puritanism and objects against the religion's superfluous punishments; which force individuals to endure unnecessary and extreme suffering.

Within the body of her speech, Kelley starts off each of three paragraphs with, “in Alabama,” “in Georgia,” or “in Pennsylvania.” Following each state, she describes the varying, but untimely horrifying labor laws in each state. The use of the strategy allows Kelley to compare the states and prove to her audience the wide extent of the issue. By showing how awful the labor laws are in each state, the audience realizes that something must be done in order to stop the occurrence. Kelley also uses repetition of the phrase “while we sleep” in three different paragraphs. This phrase is paired with the horrifying conditions the children will face during the night. The purpose of the strategy is to guilt the audience in that while they are enjoying sleep, little girls are being labored long hours through the night making goods the audience will likely

Throughout the beginning of her speech, Kelley makes use of disturbing anecdotes that appeal to women's emotions. She first illustrates that while they “sleep, several thousand little girls” are “working in textile mills” throughout the night. This use of little girls working highlights that children all around the United States are not sleeping but are operating machines: making clothes for the adults to purchase. She incorporates this factor in order to encourage the concerned mothers to help alter labor laws so that their children are not working twelve-hour shifts. Kelley continues to describe how little girls of “six or seven years,” who are “just tall enough to reach” the machines, will be working eleven hours a day. Kelley’s use of the children's height emphasizes how as soon as children reach a certain height, they are being deprived of their childhood and sent to work in the factories. She continues to repeat the phrase that “while [they] sleep” little girls and boys “will be working” in the mills. Kelley’s continual use of this phrase evokes sympathy in the women so they can help change the lives of children by amending the harsh child labor laws.

But, before she brings this up, she first convinces her audience just how excruciatingly terrible child labor is. Kelley focuses on children working long hours through the night, saying, “tonight while we sleep…working all night long.” She then goes on to repeat the phrases, “while we sleep,” and, “all night long,” various times throughout the core of her speech. The emphasis on children working through the night appeals to the audience’s pathos; it includes the listeners in the force enslaving children, making them accountable. While the audience sleeps in the comfort of their homes, young girls spend all night working to make products for them to enjoy. The sorrowful repetition gains the listener’s sympathy for the speaker’s cause. Lastly, Florence Kelley demonstrates ironic diction in her attempt to persuade her spectators to ally with her campaign. The speaker says, “boys and girls…enjoy the pitiful privilege,” to describe young children going off to their jobs instead of to their playdates. The use of the contradictory phrase “pitiful privilege,” reminds the audience that the privilege of having a job, earning a living, becomes a burden when forced on these young

She places a feeling of guilt on her audience, but calls them to action. She said, “Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night … spinning and weaving cotton and wool silks and ribbons for us to buy” (ln 18-22). She faults herself and her audience for sitting idly by while children are working in the middle of the night in harsh conditions. Furthermore, she continues to guilt the audience by stating that all the work these children are doing are for products that the audience will buy. In lines 59-61, Kelley attacks a bill that was removed that protected fourteen year old girls from working all night. This condemns her opposition as shameful. Kelley tries to unite her female audience against the “great evil” (ln 64-65) that is child labor. She believes that the suffrage of women will free children from the cruel nature of their working conditions.

Kelley accentuates white girls in hopes that her audience will imagine their own daughters in a similar situation and feel they are to blame. Throughout the first half of her speech, Kelley uses rhetorical devices to elicit the feelings of sympathy, remorse, and pity to persuade her audience. Using extensive details, she illustrates the harsh reality of what the children go through. She expresses that tonight while they sleep “several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through, in the deafening noise of spindles and the looms spinning and weaving cotton and wool, silks and ribbons” for the audience to buy. She intentionally mentions items of necessity and luxury to relate to the poor and wealthier people she is speaking to. She uses rhetorical stances to emphasize her point by listing all the items the children make throughout the night that her audience members have most likely previously purchased. Going into detail that “the children make [their] shoes in the shoe factories; they knit [their] stockings, [their] knitted underwear” and continues by adding that they are “little beast of burden, robbed of the school life” so they can work instead. With these rhetorical stances, she evokes the feeling of guilt within her audience. By painting this picture, she reveals the grim truth that these children are forced to live by due to the

“Tonight while we sleep…” those little children will be busy working adult like hours, does not that upset you? Due to child labor laws in the United States in the early 20th century, children were working a great quantity of hours during the night time “while we sleep.” In the United States approximately twenty million children are working for their own food because of child labor laws. Florence Kelley, the author of this essay is disgusted by these unjust child labor laws and is empathetic towards the children,but also Kelley is ashamed of the United States rights of women. In this speech, Kelley expresses her loathe feeling towards child labor laws and emphasizes the fact that women cannot vote; in order for them to vote against them.

Florence Kelley is a social worker and reformer who fights for child labor laws and better working conditions for women. At the National Assembly Women Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905, Kelley recites a speech about the issue of child labor laws. She uses rhetorical strategies such as repetition of the many negative aspects of child labor through specific examples, criticism of state policies, and emotional appeal. A combination of figures, logic, evidence, and emotional appeal will help convince her audience that child labor is a problem.

Change has become an incremental aspect when it comes to reaching a success in our society. This can be seen in several different aspects within our society. It is seen within our economy, traditional and nontraditional values, and especially within our government. However, in order for us to reach any form of higher success we must be willing to change. In Florence Kelley's Speech, she expresses her firm and unchanging view of the violation of children's rights in child labor in order to make a change through the use of modes of discourse intertwined with sophisticated uses of diction, imagery, and other uses of appeals to tie into her audience and further encompass her purpose.

3. Urban industrialism dislocated women’s lives no less than men’s. Like men, women sought political change and organized to promote issues central to their lives, campaigning for temperance and woman suffrage., Susan B. Anthony, launched the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1869, demanding the vote for women suffrage, though not yet generally supported, was no longer considered a crackpot idea. Thanks to the WCTU’s support of the “home protection” ballot, suffrage had become accepted as a means to an end even when it was not embraced as a woman’s natural right.

Florence Kelley, an active social worker and reformer of the 20th century, rants over the horrendous working conditions kids must endure. She presents this in her speech before National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia, which provides context and credibility for her argument. Kelley argues clearly of the terrible conditions and work hours kids suffer to bring about her message of, “enlisting the workingmen voters.” This is essentially to free the kids from the disastrous issue through her usage of credibility, empathetic tone to strike the audience, and her usage of examples of their conditions and state rules to support her message and purpose.

In an essay described about Ellen Terry, the author depicts this widely talented individual by using metaphors, juxtaposition, and rhetorical questions. This author portrays Ellen Terry in a positive light as a writer, author, and actress. Ellen is not only praised for her natural talent, she is also most widely recognized as one of the first to be completely original in her endeavors. The author compares her to famous actors and writers, such as Shakespeare, to help sway her intended audience to grasp the vast range of talent that Ellen embodies. She mentions that Ellen’s talent is so great that she often surpasses the works of these well-known writers due to her ability to set herself apart from all others.

Kelley starts off her speech with a bang by constantly repeating herself, which allows the audience to understand how important the points she is trying to get across truly are. For example, on lines 10-12 she states, “Men increase, women increase, youth increase, boy increase…” By using such dramatic repetition, Kelley causes the audience to feel sadness towards the children, since they are being treated like adults at such a young age. Kelley continues her strong usage of repetition throughout the entire story by constantly stating the words “little white girls” should not be doing the type of jobs that adults do. By using more little white girl statements rather than little white boy statements in her speech, Kelley is able to show the problem in child labor, but more importantly the change that is needed for women’s rights. Finally, on lines 92-96 she goes onto say, “For the sake of the children, for the Republic in which these children…

There are many ways that Florence Kelley uses rhetorical devices to convey her message about child labor to her audience. One way that she does this is through appealing to the audience’s emotion. Kelly states that”... while we sleep little white girls will be working tonight in the mills those states, working eleven hours at night”(Kelly). This appeals to emotion because the thought of a little girl working in a dangerous mill, while others are sleep is sad and depressing. Another reason that this is part of the text appeals to emotion during this time frame she gave the speech is because the thought of a little “white girl” working in the Mills was more important and more appealing than a little black girl

A child of the 1900’s had to work all day or all night instead of going out to play and enjoy their colorful life. Children from this era were not allowed to go to school instead they had to grow up at an early age and have many adult responsibilities. Florence Kelley’s message to the world was to share how wrong it was to have children staring at the age of six working for many companies in order to help feed themselves and their families. Kelly’s attempt was meant to get upper class women to listen and understand the suffering of the lower class children all over the country who had to give up their childhoods in order to grow up and work for what was almost nothing. Kelly wanted to create a strong message that would reach peoples soft spots in order to have change for a child’s future.