Female Empowerment in Tocqueville and Kincaid

In Reading America, I choose HOW THE AMERICANS UNDERSTAND THE EQUALITY OF THE SEXES written by ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, and Girl by Jamaica Kincaid. These two articles are different. However, both of them are about women’s power but differently shows that. Persoreciate the first essay which is more clear to show the audience the reasons and examples. It finished the goals to communicate with us and makes us know about the background. However, the second article is named girl whose writing skills are very special like a poem.

Just describing what the girl does and others’ attitudes toward the girl.

For the first article, Alexis states why women are different from men naturally and want to compare women throughout the whole world. Then he mainly talks about women in Europe and America. After that, he connects the attitude to society’s behavior. The audience in this essay seems to be someone who cares about female power or female themselves. Moreover, the genre of this writing is argumentation to analyze what he wants to talk about step by step, I can’t understand which side he is in so that the author’s stance is double-side to the problem.

He analyzes from a long time agthanen to all over the world; then mainly talked about the attitudes in America and Europe society. The author uses some rhetorical appeals to make the article more convincing. He uses logos very accurately. For example, “their occupations, their pleasures, their business. It may readily be conceived, that, by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded; and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature, nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women.

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” (372) It helps the writer to prove that “would make man and woman into beings not only equal but alike.

(372) Author uses a person to build his credibility, “as for myself, I do not hesitate to avow, that, although the women of the United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is, in some respects, one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier position.” (374) What makes me interested is that he often uses an active attitude to describe the thing that n uses an opposite way to comment on the negative to the positive. After reading this unique twice, I start to guess what is next when I read some negative descriptions. However, he doesn’t change it as o thamakeske the article easy to read and understand. It is a standard essay, and the thesis is in the first paragraph which is easy to find.

Compared to the second article, the author Kincaid uses a very special model to tell us the believers happened to a girl. She uses all the now complete sentences during the whole essay. The article seems more like a poem to let the audience have enough imagination space to have their views. The audience can be everyone but should some who read about the details of life. Some of the girl’s behaviors could happen to our audience self. The author uses the girl to remind what we did when we are girls and boys. The article is too unique so there seems no ethos but all the articles used logos and pathos. For example, “you mustn’t speak to wharf-rat boys, not even to give directions; don’t eat fruits on the street — flies will follow you, but I don’t sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday school” (376) This article is a skit which satires the unfair and non-equal between women and man. What I like most is that the structure of this article is Parallelism. When reading it, I feel full of power which leaves me deep memory. Because it is so unique and special, so there is no thesis but during the whole article, we can know about what the author wants to state.

After comparing, it is obvious that the first article is more normal, it has complete sentences and structure. Alexis uses more rhetorical techniques than Kincaid, and both of them use very effectively and persuasively language. However, the second essay only uses 2 pages telling a girl’s daily life and it can be related to her rights as a woman and we can see the difference between a girl and a boy. She seems living in a world around men. The author deliberately emphasizes she is not a boy. It can be very strong pathos to the audience. The two articles are so different but we can deny both of them are good.

Works Cited

1. TOCQUEVILLE, ALEXIS. “HOW THE AMERICANS UNDERSTAND THE EQUALITY OF THE SEXES.” Reading America. Ninth ed. Boston/ New York: Bedford/ ST. Martin’s, 2013.333-340. Print.
2. KINCAID, JAMAICA. “Girl.” Reading America. Ninth ed. Boston/ New York: Bedford/ ST. Martin’s, 2013.333-340. Print.