Primary source analysis on gender: Aint a Woman
Basing the focus on gender, Aint I a Woman remains as an artifact that was spoken during a womans convention with the primary focus on fights for women rights. In this famous speech, Sojourner Truth spent most of her life traveling the country with the main aim of raising awareness and inciting change. She had a primary mission of ensuring women and racial equality more so for African Americans. Basically, Aint I a woman speech is full of the colorful language of a subject matter which is relatable and seems to have commanded the attention of those she served and encountered.
Ideally, the overall theme that is raised in the Truths message shows her great desire to offer a voice to those who are perceived to be voiceless and are silently suffering. It applies to those women who are looked down upon because of grace or even those who have been dismissed because they are female. Through the narrative, it lends itself to the Truth mission of speaking for women who are in the category and are afraid or simply not able to speak out for their rights when they feel they are stepped or afraid of the attack.
The Truth first initial speech was given in the year 1851 with her initial opening lines being, Well children, where there exist so much racket there must be something out of Kilter (Truth, 1851). In other words, the use of the term children sounds to be strange and portrays an ambiguous meaning. Since the setup and the people who were being addressed and even the speech was directed to women and not children. It was a woman convention, and it is just unrealistic to assume that children were present by then. Through this, we came to realize that Truth was addressing a room that was full of the adult as children is a good example he views everyone in an equal manner and all she want is to change the mentality of others who were belittling women.
Additionally, through the speech, the background information clearly demonstrate that Truth has a strong attachment to Christian in that it is stated that, it is possible no matter the gender or race, she believes that every individual in the room belongs to God, thus His children. In the speech, Truth is identified to be full of language styles through different literal methods that were used in her expression. Something is out of Kitler as the metaphor in the speech, thereby shows the audience that something was not right.
Ultimately, she can declare that I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns and no man could head me! (Truth, 1851) .Through such bold and powerful statement in the speech, we realize that it is an expression of her severe struggle in the past that made her work so hard as a slave, making the most of her life and even her body to lose the femininity of a woman and the general look. This is added through lines like look at me! Look at my arms!
Through the general view of Aint I a Woman, this primary source is recognized to be one of the most amazing works not only of art but a great inspiration that inspired change and gave black women hopes to go out speak out their grievances.
Reference
Truth, S. (1851, May 29). Aint I A Woman? Retrieved November 17, 2014, from
http://gos.sbc.edu/t/truth.html.
