America Has Gone To Sleep Figurative Language

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Was the Constitution written for you? This is a speech named “America has gone to sleep” written by Shirley Chisholm. On October 3, 1983, at Greenfield High School in Greenfield. Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman elected to Congress. While being a member of the congress she attacked a massive problem America was sleeping on. So she delivers a speech discussing a coalition between African Americans and women. To help make this world a better place. The way the author Chisholm uses figurative language in this speech is to acquire us to understand that this is how this makes us feel. In the middle of the speech she states “So they came because the words at the foot of the statue of liberty beckoned to them and gave them the …show more content…

Right after that she quotes “Our confrontation must be against women in the kitchen” These three quotes try to get the people to understand that to change the confrontation there needs to be many changes involved. The use of Syntax in this speech is very successful because she repeats the first two words so that people gain the feeling this is something that they thought of. These three quotes all target what has to change in confrontation in order for change to come. With this in mind, the author Chisholm also uses logos as a way to back her reason up with logic, so that people are more prone to agree with her since the information she’s giving will give them a reason to. An example to back that up is a quote where she states “We must remember that when the constitution was written, that women were regarded as property and that blacks were only regarded as ⅗ of a person.” As I stated before she gives women information on how like African Americans they were looked down upon including not seen as human beings when the constitution was written. This is very successful because it makes them look at the constitution in a different way including questioning their own worth, which would cause them to want to bring a change to …show more content…

The use of pathos and logos in this speech is successful because it helps her argument on how African Americans and women of American problems are similar and if they were to work together they would be able to make a change. In the final analysis Chisholm uses logos and tells us information that’s very important as to why a change should be made, which will cause us to agree because what she gives us are facts. So she has a great reason as to why a discussion ought to be made along with changes. The use of logos transfers into pathos because down the road realization hits and it shows that America is considered the land of the “free” yet the way that African Americans along with women are treated unequal doesn’t represent that, so it makes them feel guilty. Which also stores the use of syntax and figurative language. The way that Chisholm uses logos is a way to give people facts and inform them about what is wrong so that they are more inclined to agree since she’s correct. Pathos which is another rhetorical device uses the fact that America is a

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