Speech Sounds Octavia Butler Analysis

In the speech, Equal Rights for Women by Shirley Chisholm, main rhetor in the speech. She is the first African American woman to be elected to Congress. She is part of the House Representative in Washington D.C, from May 21, 1969, to 1983. She entered the primaries for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1972. Chisholm purpose is to fight for equal rights for all citizens, most specifically women. She wants to help as an advocate by providing more opportunities for women and encouraging women to do different men work field, other than just working as a secretary, teacher, librarian, or to just be a household woman. She wants to eliminate discrimination; prejudiced on the political view of

No matter what a person’s race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation is, everyone should enjoy equality. In the speech Speech Upon the Removal of Confederate Monuments by Mitch Landrieu, the Mayor of New Orleans, the removal of the Confederate monuments in New Orleans is discussed. The speech emphasises the fact that the Confederacy was wrong pertaining to their treatment of African Americans, and instead of teaching history, the Confederate monuments convey an image of inequality and violence. Mitch Landrieu argues for the deconstruction of historic Confederate monuments through his allusions to past historic events to contrast the modern shift of equality, so he can call the people to action to deconstruct the monuments. Through the

The short story presents women as aware but misunderstood by men through use of narrative point of view. In society women are usually seen as inferior to men, and therefore often don’t get the acknowledgement they deserve. “The women held their secrets because when they mentioned it to their husbands or brothers they were laughed at….Instead of sympathy, the husbands and brothers now had a secret weapon”. This shows that women did not share their fears as it gave others ideas to torment them further. Women in the short story are also shown to be fully aware of the boy’s behaviour early on in the story. “The men of his home town said, but how

For my rhetorical analysis, I chose the movie "Rocky Balboa". This speech gave me a lot of insight on how to take care of things and to deal with the consequences afterwards. Rocky's speech to his son “Rocky Balboa Jr.” was very inspirational and motivational. The purpose of this speech was to encourage you to fight for what you want no matter how many times you get pushed down. It taught me to be myself regardless of what other people will say and think. The speech was informative and persuasive. It was informative because Rocky informed his son with factual advice knowing that he has endured the something growing up. It was persuasive because he persuaded his son to be the best possible version of himself. The context/meaning of the

Being on your phone too much takes away from your boredom and your own creative thoughts. In the month of April 2017, Manoush Zomorodi gave a speech at Ted Talks about how boredom can actually be good for you. Her purpose was to explain to people how being bored leads to great things. She also wants to clarify to people that being on your phone affects your boredom. She describes in her speech that while being on your phone is fun, it never gives you time to actually sit and think. Being on your phone never makes you bored, and Zomorodi wants to show that being on your phone too much doesn’t allow new thoughts to come about. Zomorodi’s primary audience was toward middle age people that could not keep their phones away from them. The theme

As statistics show, science fiction has long been a genre produced and consumed by nerdy, middle aged, white men, with little to no social skills. The content of science fiction has typically revolved around intergalactic interaction and male dominated adventure and exploration, most certainly do not imagine that science fiction can be used to write about feminist thoughts or ideas. However, this is exactly what Octavia Butler does in her short story “Speech Sounds.” Many scholars believe that feminist science fiction writers write toward a utopian society. Butler, however, tends to write more towards a confrontation with dystopia. A dystopian society, or anti-utopia, is a society

The date is June 6th, 1984, and American President Ronald Reagan stands solemnly before a massive stone monument on what he calls "a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France." On this historic day, the President of the United States stands solemnly before a small crowd of some of the bravest men living. The men assembled before him know these cliffs well. These are the Rangers who scaled the cliffs 40 years ago to do more than win the cliffs on the shores of Normandy. These are the Rangers who began the retaking of the entirety of Europe from Axis Control. That was 40 years ago, now only 90 of the original 225 sit before him now. All that can be heard are the crash of the waves on beach below and the occasional cry of a seagull

During the nineteenth and twentieth century there was a number of changes made in America. Woman were looked at as less than back then and to a certain degree they still are today. There was a number of women that died or went insane because of the standards that they had to meet in order to be considered good women. In this research paper I will talk about the experience of the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper and Blanche DuBois from the story A Streetcar Named Desire. It will be shown within these pages how the moral and societal standards for women were far different than they were for men, and how the standards changed over the years. Furthermore it will be shown how this effected the women of those two stories.

Image being struck down by cancer and having to living with a disease eating at your body, well Jim Valvano lived under those circumstances and was able to give one of the influential speeches of all time that people still turn to for motivation. The ESPY Awards is an annual award ceremony in which awards are presented to individuals to recognize their achievements in both sports-related performance and high character outside of sports(Rothman). At the 1993 Espys, Jim Valvano or “Jimmy V” delivered an acceptance speech for the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, a speech that moved the audience to their feet. Just nine months prior to speaking, Jimmy was diagnosed with a severe form of cancer called Metastatic Adenocarcinoma (V Foundation). It was evident, by the way he spoke, his time on earth was quickly coming to an end, in the way he spoke and the stories he told about those he has met through his life. During the speech he referred to not knowing how much time he still had on earth before cancer took him for good (V Foundation).Jimmy V argues the idea that one bad thing life should be able to hold you back from being a strong and outgoing individual. Jimmy Valvano was always able to uplift a crowd by bringing energy to his surroundings by his tone, use of humor, and by using the rhetorical appeal pathos.

In her story, “Old Woman Magoun” she delivered a feminist message more directly than ever. It’s based in turn-of-the-century New England, patriarchy still defined relationships even though the men themselves had degenerated. The story reflects the realities of Freeman’s own life, as her father’s business failed and her mother became the support of the family. However, Freeman’s life was not unique; rural New England is

Gender stratification is the idea of how each gender is “given different access to property, power, prestige, and other privileges available in their society” (Henslin 232). Butler opposes this ideal with the implementation of a character with intelligence, bravery, determination, and ambition. When the male passengers on the bus think Rye is having sex with Obsidian for the ride, they all believed that she should also give themselves and the rest of the men on the bus sex too. This reaction shows that men think they have a right over women. Women are objects, less important even. However, this approach is undone by Rye throughout the whole story.]]]]] She is willing to use her gun to shoot the man on the bus (Butler 249). Although women can be viewed as “defenseless”, Rye takes immediate action when it comes to her own safety, even when she knows such action could be “punished by beatings, [or] even death” (Butler 247). She fears for her safety again on page 253, where she shoots the man who shot Obsidian. Instead of fleeing for her safety or attacking the man in some other way, she takes matters into her own hands. Another instance where Rye defies gender stratification is when she initiates sex with Obsidian (252). It is obvious that Rye had feelings for Obsidian and took advantage of having developed a relationship with someone for the first time in years. Instead of waiting for Obsidian to start something, she took it upon herself to do it because she didn’t want to lose those feelings of love and safety that she forgot all about. It distracted her from the hell she was living in and she wanted to preserve it as best she could. The likely passiveness of how women are in this setting is obviously lost on her. Rye does not care about everyone’s expectations of her, or the amount of power and status she apparently has. She essentially dismantles all

     I have thought about many different ways to organize this paper and have come to the conclusion that the best way to approach the topic is on a book-by-book basis. My perceptions of the gender biases in these books vary greatly and I did not want to begin altering my views on each so that they would fit into certain contrived connections. What interests me most in these stories is how the authors utilize certain character’s within their given environment. Their instincts and reactions are a wonderful window into how the authors perceive these “people” would interact with their surroundings and often are either rewarded or punished by the author through consequences in the plot for

On Thursday, October 19th I found myself in the Brazos Valley African-American Museum to hear Kim Olson, a candidate for Texas Agricultural Commissioner. She was a woman of tremendous military stature and was truly one of the best public speakers I have had the honor of hearing. The subject of her speech covered many key points of modern agriculture and a few mentions of the modern political situation as a whole, especially in local government. Her potential platform as the Tex Ag Commissioner would allow her to go before congress and argue for the farm bill in Texas to be raised which would allow us to reach new heights of small farming in our great state. Along with this Kim picked at a few common misconceptions of locally grown food, and

Powerful rhetorical treatment of human aspirations and beliefs continue to effectively captivate audiences of various contexts. All prominent speeches evoke countless emotions and provoke thought in order to engage their audiences. Both Paul Keating’s Redfern Speech (1992) and Noel Pearson’s An Australian history for us all (1996) address the universal values of justice, equality and unity allowing the speeches to maintain a timeless appeal through the use of karios and pathos. Keating aimed to stress upon the Australian people that it was not about assigning guilt but rather acknowledging past and present complications and taking action to create equality and the unification of the nation. Comparably, Pearson addressed a well-educated, middle

Alice Walker once said, “No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies you the right to grow.” Due to the extreme patriarchal society based in the sixties era, women’s voices were often disregarded and silenced. In the historical novel Meridian, by Alice Walker, the main female protagonist, Meridian, struggles to comply with the harsh patriarchal systems set in place in her community, in turn, she uses her silence as a form of resistance. She has various encounters with a man named Truman, whom she is in love with, but fears she’s not good enough because of the color of her skin. She begins articulate her thoughts and acting without explanation. To replace her silenced voice, Walker uses third-person omniscient and characterization.