Analysis Of Elizabeth Cady Stanton's The Solitude Of Self

Elizabeth Cady Stanton dedicated her life to the woman’s rights and suffrage movements. In doing so, she spent a portion of her life delivering speeches to appeal for the equality of women. Although the audiences varied each time she gave a speech, when she resigned from her position as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in 1892 Stanton’s audience shaped her purpose, tone, and argument style of her speech. In her resignation speech, The Solitude of Self (Stanton, 1892), Stanton used the fundamental principles of government to appeal to an exclusively white male audience for the equality of women.
Stanton’s upbringing played a major role in her participation in the woman’s rights and suffrage movements. She was the daughter of a wealthy family that afforded her the opportunity of a great education, which included practical law skills from her father (National Parks Service, n.d.). Equipped with knowledge, Stanton became one of the most well known voices of woman suffrage and helped to create the First Women’s Rights Convention in 1848 (National Parks Service, n.d.). Her main goal was a “broader, more radical vision of complete gender equality,” (Hogan, 2006, p.1). Stanton continuously strived to make women seen as equals to men in all aspects of life. She believed that “never, as a dependent on his wish,

She used context from the principles set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to make her claim resonate with her privileged male audience. Throughout the speech, Stanton’s tone, purpose and implied audience support why she used the principles of government as a means of persuasion. Ultimately, the evidence I presented displays how Stanton fought to progress the women’s rights and suffrage movements through her discourse in The Solitude of