Rhetorical Analysis Of The Destructive Male By Elizabeth Cady Stanton

In “The Destructive Male” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, rhetoric is employed to persuade the reader or listeners to acknowledge and grant women equal rights. Stanton also creates a tone of zealous outrage and accusation with her use of literary devices such as alliteration and personification. Shortly after the United States Civil War, Elizabeth Cady Stanton delivered her speech at the Women’s Suffrage Convention in 1868 (Bjornlund). Stanton had to appeal to the crowd of men and women, conservatives and liberals, and even government officials by showing how women benefit the world and deserve to have the same opportunities as men to make a difference and the freedom to vote. Stanton uses ideas of the natural placement life and God’s earthly …show more content…
Women throughout history faced discrimination, segregation, and inequality. Stanton points out that women have been confronted with an “overpowering [of] the feminine element everywhere” and that they have “scarce been recognized a power” (Stanton). Women, however have “diviner qualities” and hold love as a motive behind all actions (Stanton). Recognition of the power of women can be seen in their survival and by the care still given to others after generations of malfeasance against women. Bringing life into the world, women know “the cost of life” is worth far more than the violent actions often placed on life by men (Stanton). Women are portrayed as intolerant to any life “sacrificed in vain” (Stanton). As opposed to men, Stanton believes, women view lives as more than a path to death. While men love “war, violence, [and] conquest,” women seek to protest these brutal attributes that society holds (Stanton). Stanton pulls on her audiences’ emotions by showing them the brutality men have caused in the world as compared to how women value life as a gift that is worthy of peace and