ipl-logo

Abigail Adams My Dear Son Rhetorical Analysis

446 Words2 Pages

In 1780, eight years before the creation of the Constitution, Abigail Adams writes to her son John Quincy Adams, using many different rhetorical devices to advise him throughout his voyage across seas. As a mother, Adams’s concerns and prospects for the future are expressed to her son, who is growing old enough to begin to apply his own intelligence to the world. Mothers have always shared a similarity that is rooted in their compassion and tendencies to protect their children, and Adams is no different.

Adams encourages her son through a series of rhetorical techniques. First, she displays her absolute love for him, using the phrase “my dear son” throughout the letter to continually show him that she is not scolding him; rather, she is trying to exhibit to him how much he means to her. Adams also wishes that he has “no occasion” while at sea, so he can repent about not wanting to embark on this trip. knowing the dangers that can happen. Adams is hoping that her son will be safe during the entire trip. Adams also compliments her son's advanced language skills, saying that, if used correctly, it can be used as “greater …show more content…

She compares “judicious traveller [John Quincy Adams] to a river.” As the river grows its stream will improve its qualities, therefore if Adams son [judicious traveller] grows as a person he will improve on his qualities and become a better man. Like the river that becomes wider “the further it flows from its source,” Adams is hoping her son matures and becomes a big contributor to society. She is hoping that the trip to France will increase her son's “wisdom and penetration” needed to grow into a man while with his father. Finally, she is implying that, if her son uses his gifts of higher intellect, being able to read, and travelling with his father and realizing the privileges he has been rewarded in life: going to the best school and being extremely wealthy, he will be

Show More
Related

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of My Dear Son

    596 Words  | 3 Pages

    She implies in the paragraph before that there is still always room for improving. Implying that the use of his advantages will result in more “understanding and daily improving.” In addition, she makes him feel guilty for not wanting to expand and

    Read More

  • Abigail Adams Letter To My Mother Analysis

    434 Words  | 2 Pages

    Abigail Adams is writing to her venturing son, who is of with his father John. Written in 1980, this letter signifies the beliefs that John Quincey Adams’ mother has for him. Off traveling the world to build his father’s trustworthiness, the experiences he will have, build John Adams into the man he would become. Abigail Adams presents a variety of justifiable metaphors, scholarly wisdom, and a maternal tone, to advise her son to follow his dreams and accomplish his goals. First, Adams integrates justifiable metaphors to differentiate between her son and the chances he has to be great like the generations of family before him.

    Read More

  • Abigail Adams Letter To My Son Analysis

    604 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this letter, Abigail Adams writes to her son John Quincy Adams who is abroad with his father. Later, John Quincy Adams, will be noted as a United States diplomat and president. In this letter, Abigail Adams addresses her son, offering him advice for the future. She asserts the pride she has in her son and all that he has accomplished. She encourages him to grow and expand his horizons of knowledge.

    Read More

  • Abigail Adams Letter To Her Son Rhetorical Analysis

    515 Words  | 3 Pages

    Adams uses a metaphor from another author that compares a "judicious traveler to a river." Here, Adams both establishes credibility for herself and advises her son to gain knowledge from his experiences much like a river gains as it flows. Credibility is established by demonstrating that others have the same values as she. The metaphor itself tells her son to be diligent along the way and pick up information. Adam says that "as you increase in years, you will find your understanding and daily improving."

    Read More

  • A Rhetorical Analysis Of Abigail Adams Letter To John Quincy Adams

    678 Words  | 3 Pages

    Abigail employs strategies of emotionally charged words and phrases that only a mother can say to her son. In her letter she opens the letter with the phrase, “MY DEAR SON”. This phrase is notable because of the effects that it is intended to give to the audience, her son John Quincy Adams, she is setting a mood and tone of a loving and compassionate mother. She is using the position of her authority as his mother to push him her love for him is why she knows this trip is great thing for him.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Abigail Adams Letter To Her Son

    364 Words  | 2 Pages

    First off Adams uses comparisons and contrast and contrasting to help illustrate a better understanding. In the first piece of evidence she compares a "a judicious traveler to a river". Adams wanted effect was to imply that the more knowledge you have, the more you will be able to be on your own in the future. In her second example, she contrast "a dormant man in retirement, and a hero in difficult times". She suggests

    Read More

  • Abigail Adams Letter To Her Son Analysis

    664 Words  | 3 Pages

    Abigail Adams in the letter to her son, John Quincy Adams, suggests that he be brave and a great man. Adams supports her suggestion to John by explaining what he should do and that he should be strong, mentally, on the trip. The authors purpose is to encourage the son to be a strong man in order to last on the trip, do honor to their country, and become a great man in the future. The author writes in an inspirational tone for her son John Quincy Adams. She incorporates many different literary techniques in order to get the mood and tone across to her son.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Susan B. Anthony's Speech

    991 Words  | 4 Pages

    For a very long time, the voting rights of the citizens have been a problem in the US. It started out with only men with land being able to vote, and then expanded to white men, and then to all men. However, women were never in the situation, they were disregarded and believed to not be worthy enough to have the same rights as men. They were essentially being treated as property, therefore having no rights. But, in Susan B. Anthony’s speech, she hits upon the point that women are just as righteous as men.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Abagail Adams Letter To Her Son

    452 Words  | 2 Pages

    Abagail Adams wrote a letter to her son, John Adams, who is traveling abroad with his father. Abigail Adams, who was a women back then during the Revolutionary War, didn’t have much political rights. Adams was huge in politics and so was her son, second president of the United States. Adam's uses rhetorical devices to advice her son that he is the only person that can control his future and he must know how to pull through difficulty when it's being tested. To advice her son about this, she uses many rhetorical strategies.

    Read More

  • The Rhetorical Devices Used In Abigail Adams's Letter To Her Son

    495 Words  | 2 Pages

    Abigail Adams, the mother of John Quincy Adams, is entering a new chapter in her life in which her youngest son is becoming a man. John, his elder brother, and his father are traveling on a long, treacherous voyage to France. Abigail Adams writes John an encouraging letter that will help display her feelings towards him as a mother. Adams uses a number of different rhetorical devices such as a myriad of different historical and metaphorical examples, as well as a motherly diction in order to leave a desired confidence in her son.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis: John Quincy Adams

    440 Words  | 2 Pages

    She compares "a judicious traveler" to "a river that increases its stream" the further it runs from the start of the river, or to "certain springs, which running through rich veins of minerals improve their qualities as they pass along". These excerpts show how Adams explains why the more you travel the more experience you have and you'll become more successful. She also uses a metaphor to make a comparison about how "wisdom and penetration are the fruits of experience" and how those "fruits" don't come from laziness. This clarifies how experience leads to wisdom while laziness doesn't. Adams wants her son to work for wisdom and experience.

    Read More

  • Abigail Adams Letter To Her Daughter Analysis

    471 Words  | 2 Pages

    Letter to Her Daughter from the New White House Abigail Adams does not like the new White House because it is unfinished, The City is surrounded by tree’s, and The buildings in the city aren't pleasant. The first reason that Abigail Adams does not like the White House is because it is unfinished. From the text “ There is not a single apartment finished, and all withinside, except the plaster, has been done since Briesler came.” This is my evidence because it shows that she does not like that the apartments and plastering is not done.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Abigail Adams Letter To My Son

    393 Words  | 2 Pages

    Abigail Adams is writing a letter to her son, John Quincy Adams. In this letter Adams is informing her son that he should use his wisdom and knowledge to help him throughout his trip abroad he is taking with his father, John Adams. Also known as the second president of the United States. Adams uses comparisons and pathos to encourage and advise her son while he is traveling abroad with his father. Adams establishes authority by using pathos throughout her letter.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Letter To Her Son By John Quincy Adams

    812 Words  | 4 Pages

    Every mother wants what the best for her child, even if that child may not believe so. In her letter to her son, John Quincy Adams, Abigail Adams addresses him during his travels in France and defends the rationale of her previous advice while providing her new advice, and partly demands, on the subjects of honor and duty. Abigail Adams uses emotional appeals in the form of personal repetition, flattering metaphors, and prideful personification in order to advise and persuade her son in his personal growth and appeal to his personal qualities, such as pride of honesty and knowledge, to spur his ambitions and actions. To start off the letter, after greeting him and explaining the occasion of her writing, Abigail uses personal repetition with the word “your,” before qualities and events with a positive connotation to appeal to John’s pride and leave him open to listen to more of her her advice, as she already successfully advised him in his trip to France. In only the second sentence of the letter, Abigail already throws in that her advice is, to John, “for your own benefit,” (5) later she speaks of, once again to John, “your knowledge,” (11) and finally, “your understanding,” (14).

    Read More

  • Letter To Father And Mother Rhetorical Analysis

    987 Words  | 4 Pages

    A twelve year old boy a world away from his parents once wrote in a letter to his parents: “And I have nothing to comfort me, nor is there nothing to be gotten here but sickness and death.” This child was Richard Frethorne, and in “Letter to Father and Mother,” he communicates his desperation caused by the new world’s merciless environment to his parents to persuade them to send food and pay off his accumulated debts from the journey. He accomplishes this with deliberate word choice and allusions to the bible to appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos. Frethorne uses diction, imagery, and facts to create a letter to his parents which aims to garner sympathy for his state of life and to persuade them to send food and pay off his debts.

    Read More

More about Abigail Adams My Dear Son Rhetorical Analysis

Open Document