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Freedom Or Death Emmeline Pankhurst Analysis

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Pankhurst in Defense of Militancy During the Suffragette Movement 1916 was the year the first woman was finally elected to Congress. This was not from disinterest or a lack of qualifications, but because women had no rights. During the early 20th century, while men relaxed in the comfort of their homes, women waged a war. The fight for equality influenced women like Emmeline Pankhurst to become soldiers on the front lines in the fight for suffrage. Her speech, “Freedom or Death,” outlines the necessity of her militant methodology. She defends her methods with an extensive use of metaphors and hypotheticals. She not only acknowledges counterarguments, but states that her explanations should not be necessary by pointing out the double standard between men and women. Her inspiring tone along with the aforementioned combine to strengthen and …show more content…

The metaphors both defend the suffragette cause and rally women to join it. One of Pankhurst’s most pertinent metaphors is her comparison of the fight for equality for women to a war, stating “I do not come here as an advocate… I am here as a soldier who has temporarily left the field of battle in order to explain… what civil war is like when civil war is waged by women.”(Pankhurst). For the rest of the speech Pankhurst refers to herself as a soldier. This metaphor was imperative to the effectiveness of her speech because the country was on the brink of war with Germany(“History - Emmeline Pankhurst.”). By comparing herself to a soldier, she is comparing her actions to those of a soldier at wartime. This consequently makes her somewhat radical behaviors seem less extreme, alike how soldiers are pardoned for their actions on the battlefield. Wars have always been dire and of utmost importance to the public, so when Pankhurst calls the suffragette movement a civil war, she is bringing a sense of urgency to the

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