Rhetorical Analysis Of 'Why I Want A Wife'

In an essay by Judy Brady titled “I Want a Wife”, Brady discusses the typical gender dynamics of her time period (the 1970s) and challenges them. She essentially says that women are treated like they are inferior to men and so she says that she wishes or wants someone to fulfill her duties for her just like she does for her husband. This essay shows the struggle to gain equality in this time period and also represents the thoughts that a woman in this time period might have. Not only is the meaning behind this essay significant, but the way in which Brady presents it is also significant and it amplifies and strengthens the argument. This is proven by textual evidence found in the essay itself.

In Judy Brady’s essay, “I Want a Wife,” she examines why she would like to have a wife. Brady believes that a wife performs all house chores and the husband does nothing, but to expect the wife to do everything for him. Brady tries to persuade the reader to look at a husband viewpoint of what a wife should be. The essay was written during the early 1960’s, during the second wave of the feminist movement in America. Brady is pushed by certain reasons to write, “I Want a Wife” to show the humanist humor.

In the 1970’s the average family had a wife that would take care of all of the cooking, the cleaning, everything concerning their kids, and even caring for her husband too. They did all of this without complaining, while their husband was at work. In those times nothing less was expected from them. In the article “Why I Want a Wife” Brady uses ethos, logos, and pathos to illustrate her opinion of what a wife do in a marriage, in which she infers that wives do too much for their families.

In “I Want a Wife” by Judy Brady, the author argues that the roles of a wife are unfair and more demanding than a husband's, thereby they are treated as lesser than a man. Brady supports her claim by first, introducing herself as a wife, showing her empirical knowledge; secondly, cataloging the unreasonable expectations of a wife; finally ending the essay with an emotional and thought-provoking statement, “My God, who wouldn’t want a wife?” Brady’s purpose is to expose the inequality between the roles of a husband and of a wife in order to show that women do not belong to men and to persuade women to take action and stand up for themselves. Based on when this essay was written and since it is about the impossible expectations of a wife, Brady was writing to feminists in the 1960s in order to rally them to create a change in the way people thought.

My topic in this writing will be whether or not Joan Didion’s piece gets the rhetorical devices through to her audience. The two main rhetorical elements I will be looking at are didactic and imagery, I will also look at how they either do or don 't work well. First off Joan Didion took the title from George Orwell because she liked the words or at least the sound of them. In her essay “Why I Write” she explains how she writes and how she became a writer using her own mental images. In a way, she is a visual learner. So with her using didactic and imagery in a way to explain how the word “I” is her voice, not an author 's voice. Overall she gives a good case for basically why you should use “I” sparingly. Her use of her own mental imagery was a great touch, it added a new dimension to it by not just assuming where she got it but actually telling us. Although I can see some issues on how it didn 't work as a strong convincing argument within the essay of hers, one of those being how in her third page she is giving examples. These examples of her writing without “I” is good, yet they don 't give a strong case for why you shouldn 't use “I”. Granted her before and after paragraphs give great quotes and a strong, clean reasoning why you shouldn 't. A saying so powerful as “It tells you. You don’t tell it” (Didion, 1976, p. 2), and as a follow-up we get the watered down examples, it just doesn 't live up to the first part. I guess it true even in writing, the first one is

Ever since the days of World War I, women have been seen as second rate to men. They had to live up to many social standards that men didn’t have to and had strict guidelines on how to live their lives. This all changed when modernism deliberately tried to break away from Victorian Era standards in which women were subjugated to a lot more scrutiny. Ezra Pound, who was a large figure in the modernist movement, captured the spirit of the era in his famous line “Make it new!” Consequently, many writers started to experiment with many different and wild writing styles, which led to the short stories and poems we have today. The stories The Wife of His Youth and Mrs. Spring Fragrance were all written in this era of modernism. While they are written in a more traditional style of writing, both these stories have strong implications on feminism from the viewpoints of both male and female writers.

An average, women during the 1960’s were held accountable for many responsibilities. Women led very different lives during this time period. Punctual, responsible, and reliable were just some of the many standards that were expected from society. At the age of twenty women were expected to be married; soon after they would become pregnant. Raising a family and devoting their lives to be the best housewives possible. Legally women made no earnings or any income for that matter. Child care and in vigorous chores were a part of their daily routine. Women had no say financially. Women had one duty, and that was to be a housewife. Men had all the control in marriages; after all they were the bread winners. Women were stuck in a vicious cycle of controlling and power hungry men. Comparing women from the 10960’s to the women in today’s generation is quite astonishing. The women’s rights movement fought for women to be free. Women no longer need to be chained to such degrading and depressing circumstances. Raising a family and having a husband is a beautiful goal most women dream of. However, we should also have the right to decide when we want to marry and to whom we believe is the right candidate. “Why I Want a Wife” written by Judy Brady raises a powerful message on women in the 1960’s. Judy touches upon the idea that women had constantly been expected to be in confined and submissive relationships. Brady perfectly depicts the

Brady also uses irony to develop an opinion towards the basic male perspective on gender roles: "I want a wife who will work and send me to school. The technique of using irony gets the message across of all males wanting to have a perfect wife. Brady wants to have "a wife who is a good nurturing attendant" to her children. " The most ironic element about Brady's essay is that she has allowed herself to become a wife, and is now regretting it, wanting a wife of her own. The strategy of using irony is that it shows that all males are looking for a wife as prefect as the one described by Brady. And "I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean. As well, Brady would also like to have a wife take care of her physical and social needs: "I want a wife who will keep my clothes clean," "who cooks the meals," "who will care for me when I am sick" and "a wife who

Over the course of many years, women have struggled to expand their roles and rights in society, hoping to one day achieve complete equality with their male counterparts. Two women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Judy (Syfers) Brady, both recognized the patriarchal society in which women had to endure. They despised the way it heaped inequality and servitude upon women, and decided to assert their opinion on the issue in order to change the perceptions and imposed limitations on women. In Stanton’s speech, “Declaration of Sentiments”, and in Brady’s article, “I Want a Wife”, both women attempt to convince their audiences that females deserve complete equality with men by stating the submissive situations and obligations women find themselves immersed in. This is done to get their female audiences to reevaluate how they have been treated and give them a second chance at attaining equality. Both women employ various rhetorical techniques in their arguments to strengthen, as well as compel other women to oppose the ‘domesticated’ image of women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Judy (Syfers) Brady expressed their views in pursuance of forging a path to a revamped lifestyle for women.

In the beginning when Adam was created, God knew man needed a woman to fulfill the Earth so he made Eve. The household perception of society in the 1970’s was that men needed a woman to do everything for him. A husband went to his job and did nothing while his wife ran the household, cared for their children, including the husband himself. The wife rarely had time for herself and acted as a slave for her family. Judy Brady uses logos to connect with her audience in “Why I Want a Wife”.

Furthermore, the society believes that “no married woman can represent the female world, for she belongs to her husband” (747). In this passage, Fuller explains how society feels that the woman is the unequal property of the husband, as she can no longer represent females. She views this as a huge inequality because she feels in a marriage no partner should have more power over the other, much less consider them property. Ultimately, Margaret Fuller tries to stop the inequalities within society by describes the various rights that society tries to keep women from obtaining.

certainly connect with the narrator’s story of I Want a Wife. This is a narrative essay, in which

In the book The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan brings attention to what she calls the feminine mystique, or “the problem that has no name”. Through the use of anecdotal narratives, her own personal experiences as a journalist, editor, mother, and the interviews of many women from different backgrounds in order to unveil the truth about the women of the 1950’s. The problem which sparked the second wave of feminism in the United States is one that focuses on the inequality between men and women and the undervaluing of women in both the social and private spheres. The women of the time gave up pursuing their passions, such as getting an education or careers in science or business in order to fit the image of the stereotypical stay-at-home mom whose main goal in life is to raise her children while providing a safe and comforting home for her husband. The Feminine Mystique, as she called it, was the idea of widespread unhappiness of women, despite the preconceived notion that women were happiest when they have a family. Throughout her work, she dives into many of the problems associated with the feminine mystique and builds a powerful concept of what would eventually be labeled feminism.

In Judy Brady’s article “I Want A Wife”, she uses repetition greatly in her essay to make her point, why wouldn’t anyone want a wife. Judy Brady was born in 1937 in San Francisco and got a B.A at the University of Iowa in 1962. Brady’s article first appeared in the feminist magazine Ms., which was in Arlington County, Virginia in 1972. The author’s main idea was to show the amount of work that a wife is expected to do. She does this by strategically listing out what she looks for in a wife. She constantly says, “I want a wife”, to signify that she wants someone to do these things for her as she has done for her husband. In today’s society, the wife is seen as the caretaker and doer of all businesses, while still catering to a

Judy Brady has strong beliefs in regards to societal standards, specifically the unrealistic pressures forced upon women. Within her essay “I Want a Wife”, Brady emphasizes the ridiculousness of the extremely high standards women are expected to follow without resistance. In order to get the point across clearly, she creates a sarcastic tone through diction and repetition.