In her preachings of divine wrath, Sojourner Truth expresses her opinion of injustice women face throughout their lives. The speech, given at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention, was later recounted by Frances Dana Gage who helped organize women’s conferences across Ohio. Gage’s conferences met in order to collect petitions to give women the right to vote which was called the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1850-1851. Numerous men, including pastors, came to this convention in order to heckle speakers including Sojourner Truth. Within the limits of Ain’t I a Woman?, Truth embodies the fierceness of those prophets in a strikingly spirited voice fighting for justice.
Truth’s speech is so effective due to her use of an extremely energetic tone. Her energy portrays that she is ardent for her cause, and transfers some of that passion to the reader through sentences that are direct. “I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well!” She compares herself to a man in order to point out there are not as many differences between man and woman as one would believe and in fact are more like equals. She states, “Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman?” As if to embarrass every man who mistreated her causing her tone to be demeaning, by saying that even a woman like her cannot survive without man helping them. Men being degraded in this manner allows more women to rally with her during her speech. “I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me!” Primary duties of women at that time were to look after the children, cook, and take care of their husbands. She continues to relate to her audience through informing them in a no nonsense manner of her trials as a woman. Her energy is almost palpable and is clearly projected through her words.
Truth spoke in an intent manner and passionately about women’s rights. “Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from?” Her pietistic tone can be used in this manner since most of her audiences were Christians at that time allowing her to freely use words such as Jesus and God to give more of a spiritual feeling to her speech. “From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.” Truth points out that were all born from a woman, and to say they don’t deserve rights because they are colored and/or female is wrong. While she used a rhetorical question, she answers herself adding more emphasis to the answer. “What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?” Her tone is pretty fed up and she doesn’t understand how men can treat or see women be treated this way. *
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Throughout the speech, Truth continues to point out the misogynistic actions of society. “And ain’t I a woman?” In her use of anaphora, her tone becomes increasingly demanding. “Look at me!” While her short and direct sentences are assertive, they reveal a subtle sarcastic tone. She points out their hypocrisy and from reading you can see her urgency, her demand, her anger. Sojourner Truth finishes the text with the notation that women are coming to get what is rightfully theirs and the men ‘better let them.”
