Summary Of Abigal Adams Letter To John Quincy Adams

In a letter to him, Abigal Adams writes to advise her son, John Quincy Adams, of the benefits that may be reaped from his reluctant voyage to France with John Adams and his brother. Abigal Adams primarily utilizes her maternal influence over her son to rhetorically enforce her statements. Adams also appeals to her son’s ego by stressing how his intellectual and diplomatic capabilities, while already vast, could be greatly broadened by these worldly experiences.
Adams begins her letter by first establishing herself as more capable of predicting what opportunities would be good for John Quincy Adams. With the line “If I thought… or that you were capable of judging what was most for your own benefit…” Adams suggests that her son is not as able