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Rhetorical Analysis Of Abigail Adams Letter To Her Son

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In Abigail Adams’ letter to her son John Quincy Adams, (1780) she provides him with advice as he is traveling abroad with his father John Adams. As she writes this letter to her son she uses certain rhetorical strategies to make her letter more comforting for her son. Abigail Adams uses rhetorical strategies such as juxtaposition, her tone, and her appeal to emotion. Abigail Adams does this to kind of give her son a form of hope and that she strongly believes in him. Without them the, letter wouldn’t have been as effective for her son. Abigail Adams opens her letter up with her tone in which it appears to be very convincing. She does so in the beginning paragraph by assuring her son that it was to his own benefit to go travel abroad with his father. Abigail Adams says “If I had thought your reluctance arose from proper deliberation”, and, “I should have not urged you to accompany your father and brother.” Thus suggesting that her hopes for her son on this trip is for him to grow as a person and become more mature. So that in the future he is able to make his own decisions whilst becoming his own person. To add on, Abigail Adams in a way is trying to apologize to her son for sending him off with his father without him wanting to go. But she did so on the outlook that he learns something out of his whole experience …show more content…

Adams compares “judicious traveler” to a “river” signifying with this that when a river flows in different directions each time it going farther from its source, but does so in order to improve the quality in which the river is. She relates this to her son as saying that him having gone on this trip will give him advantages that no one else may have. That she holds him to high standards and only wants the best, meaning for him to build a future for himself. In her comparison the more the traveler travels the more that person will see and

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