Literary devices:

-Title: “Ain’t I a Woman”

-Tone: she was personal, persuasive and passionate.
-Theme: Women’s rights, injustice and slavery
-Biblical References: God, Jesus Christ, Mary, and Eve. The speaker mentions these in order to
create a relationship with the audience as many people during this time period could relate
with Christianity.
-Audience: Her audience was the attendees of a conference on women's rights, which included
abolitionists, white people, Black people, ministers, suffragists, and troublemakers.
-Imagery: Truth employs imagery of the physical labor she has performed as a slave that makes
her equal, she says, to any man. She similarly evokes religious imagery to advocate for equality.

-Allusions: Truth includes several biblical allusions in her speech. She alludes to the story of
Adam and Eve to demonstrate that women deserve a second chance. She also mentions the
birth of Jesus as evidence for women's central role in her religion and thus why they should be
allowed their rights.

-Repetition: “Aint I a Woman” for emphasis, emotion and feeling. I am a woman and I'm not
weak. Her use of repetition essentially makes her point known to the audience.

-Metaphor: “if my cup won't hold but a pint...full” she argues how black women have less rights
that others and how those who have more want t take all they away from black women.
-Rhetorical questions: there is several throughout her speech “Aint I a woman?” “where did
your Christ come from?”

Analysis:
First paragraph:
She starts by giving a reason to why she is giving this this speech when she mentions that there
is too much noise and that something is out of place or something is wrong so she has come to
speak up to this. This noise which she called it “racket” to show how there is a lot of talking
about women rights and what they are going to do about it but nothing is actually being done,
she is showing that this is an issue, a controversial matter.
She then talks about how there is so much attention and uproar being made over may unfair
state of things. She then says that if all black men and women work together, they may be able
to get rid of slavery and discrimination. She ends this paragraph with a question that addresses
what she will talk about in the rest of her speech.

Second paragraph:
Here she points to a man in the audience and states that he says that women should be helped
into carriages, lifted over ditches and have the best place everywhere, that an she pointed to is
probably a white man and so she didn’t actually hear this from him but she points at him
meaning that all men think this way.
She then says that nobody does those things for her, giving her experience as like evidence for
how she is treated different just because she is black. Here she rejects the general point of view
that men have, which is that women are weak and need those things to be done for them. She
also mentions how black women are not considered as delicate as white women are.
She states the work she does, showing her arm as evidence, she includes planting, gathering
and ploughing into barns and how she could eat just as much as a man could, and that she is
still also able to endure and go through with it
She talks about how she saw her 13 children get sold off to slavery and how only Jesus heard
her cries.
Here she is telling the audience her own personal experiences as a slave to persuade and
connect with them. She proves the myth that women are weaker than men wrong.

Third paragraph:
She mentions Jesus again when she points to another man in the audience, saying these things
specifically to these people singles them out rather than addressing more than one person. This
catches their attention and the attention of others in the audience. This man would supposedly
say that women shouldn’t have the same rights as men do because Jesus Christ wasn’t a
woman.
She answers him by repeating the rhetorical question “Where did your Christ come from?”
which makes her speech more powerful and make the audience stop and think about what she
is saying, this is to emphasize and gain the audience’s attention also to what she is about to say
next, “From God and a woman!” and how man had nothing to do with Jesus’s birth. Showing
the importance of women.
Fourth paragraph:
The audience member whispered the answer to Sojourner's question, which is a little unusual.
The fact that everyone was able to hear the man whisper the answer also shows that the
audience members were very quiet and attentive.

Fifth paragraph:
"If the first woman God ever made.... the men better let them."
She mentions the first women that God had created which was Eve and her point was that
people believed that one woman which is Eve was responsible from everything bad that had
ever happened and so she says that if that was done by one woman if all women gathered
together, they may be able to make things right again, like getting fair treatment and equal
rights as the others.

Sixth paragraph:
"Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say."
She speaks in the third person She says, "now old Sojourner." Also, she didn't conclude what
she had just spoken about; she just thanks the audience for listening and says she has nothing
else to say.

Personal Response:
I feel like her speech was very influential and that she must have been a very powerful woman
to have been able to give this speech at that time. She was very persuasive in explaining why
giving all woman equal rights is common sense and must be done. She had the courage to state
her personal painful experiences a slave to get the audience to try and understand why these
rights should be given. She also challenged the audience to look at her as a woman and to see
what's she capable of and been through and tell her that she doesn’t deserve the rights she is
asking.