Sojourner Truth, a women’s rights activist living during
the mid to late nineteenth century, faced many struggles during her lifetime,
being an African-American woman. Truth was born into slavery, but escaped with
her infant daughter in 1826, where she went on to write speeches arguing her political
and social opinions. One of her most famous works is called, “Ain’t I A Woman?”, from December of
1851. In this speech, Truth employs anaphora of her title phrase, and a
frustrated diction in order to argue a woman’s distorted meaning in society. Truth’s
introduction of the racist and unequal times of society lead up to her use of
anaphora. When describing the set definition of a woman, she says, “I could
work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash
as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children […] And ain’t I a
woman?” (Truth 2). As Truth recounts, it is difficult for a woman to get
necessities because men come first, with the scarps remaining. Furthermore, a
woman can still be abused (“lashed”) even after bearing children for the man.
The repetition of her statement toys with the fact that women are defined by
such insignificant attributes, including all weaknesses. This attitude of utter
frustration carries over on to her diction, when she says, “Then they talk
about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience
whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with
women's rights or negroes' rights?” (Truth 3). From the use of the word “intellect”,
it is shown that stereotypes do not define a person. Therefore, everyone should
have the same rights no matter their intelligence, which may or may not fit the
conceived idea society has for that specific group of people. Overall, Truth
does not conform to the distorted definition of a person to define that person.
Visual: http://eloquentwoman.blogspot.com/2011/04/famous-speech-friday-sojourner-truth.html
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