Edgeworth's Rhetorical Analysis

For the purpose of this essay, we define satire as “ a style of writing used to criticize an aspect of society through the use of irony or exaggeration” (University of Illinois). In Edgeworth’s essay, we see these techniques used multiple times in order to ridicule the outrageousness of the way that society viewed women at the time. To begin, her letter is based off of a hyperbolical axiom: “that a lady can do no wrong” (Edgeworth 1). Edgeworth was a well educated woman and knew that “perfection [was] beyond the reach of mortals”, but chose to include the claim in her essay as a means of exaggeration (Edgeworth 1). This contributes to her satire, as she explains that “for many centuries, man [has been] allowed to be infallible [so] why [should]

By exaggerating the gap between the credibility of the two sexes, Edgeworth’s satirical techniques contribute to her point that women are treated as inferior to men. Another example of sarcasm is when Edgeworth talks about women with “the good fortune to have a common enemy, a husband, to combat” (Edgeworth 2). This is sarcasm because having an enemy to combat is not considered a good thing, and her entire essay is about the ways that husbands treat their wives poorly, so to have one would not be considered good fortune. This contributes to her essay because it makes the point that wives should not have to combat their husbands - if they were treated as equally, then the two could work together and be more productive instead of “[engaging] in perpetual petty skirmishes” (Edgeworth 2). Edgeworth brings up sarcasm again when she addresses how a woman can argue: she is given the “dear privilege of repeating continually:... the universal opinion” (Edgeworth 3). This is sarcasm because she is saying that a woman can only repeat the common opinion, what everyone else thinks, and cannot come up with anything on her