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John Adams Letter To Her Son Analysis

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Before John Adams became president, he was a US diplomat who ended up travelling abroad with his sons, one of them being John Quincy Adams, a future US president. While they were travelling, Abigial Adams sent her son a letter. Throughout the letter, Adams advises and encourages her son by using a motherly voice and making connections. In order to identify with her son, Adams uses a motherly voice to show affection and establish authority. To begin the letter, Adams establishes the authority she has over her son by saying, "If I has thought your reluctance arose from proper deliberation, or that you were capable of judging what was most of your own benefit, I should not have urged you to accompany your father when you appeared so adverse to the voyage." Adams establishes this authority right away in hopes that it will make her son more willing to listen to her …show more content…

To begin with, Adams questions if Cicero would have "shone so great an orator" had he not faced challenges such as "the tyranny of Catiline, Verres, and Mark Anthony." By doing this, she's not only connecting her son to a figure with great feats, but also telling him and challenges he faces in life will only render him more impressive, so she suggests that he overcomes them. Later, Adams connects her son to his father, who is a well-accomplished politician. She mentions his father's success, but tells her son that his father's impressive career "ought not be one of the least of [his] incitements towards exerting every power and faculty of [his] mind." Here, Adams is informing her son that she wants him to be just as successful as his father, but that all his father's triumphs shouldn’t intimidate him. The author is trying to inspire her son to believe in his potential and be great by comparing him to important figures that have had immense

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