Rhetorical Analysis

The Author

From the early 1900's until well into the 1960's, New York native Margaret Sanger led the crusade for birth-control and contraceptives. She is the daughter of a radical reformist father, and a mother who died young after birthing eleven children, shaped Margaret into a stronger, opinionated, and independent woman. After studying to become a nurse, starting a family of her own, and becoming involved with the socialist party in New York, Margaret began working with poor immigrant women in the slums in 1912. The experiences she had with these women strengthened her sentiment that women should be in total control of childbearing, an outlook she had developed after witnessing her mother's death, which she blamed on the fact that she had so many children. The horrendous tales of self-induced abortions and difficult pregnancies appalled Margaret to action.

For the next few years Margaret Sanger's crusade provided great tension with law enforcement as she sent pamphlets regarding contraceptives through the mail and even opened a birth-control clinic in Brooklyn, in blatant violation of the Comstock Act and other laws. By the 1920's, Margaret's tactics had become less radical. She founded the American Birth Control League, subsequently to become Planned Parenthood, in 1921, one of the biggest milestones in her crusade. In 1925, as a part of the first national birth-control conference, she delivered her landmark speech “The Children's Era.” In the speech, Margaret attempts to show the importance of women's control over childbearing as it applies to society as a whole, and children who will eventually be born. Margaret Sanger's purpose is impeccably conveyed through various stylistic choices and the use of analogous situations (Sanger, Pp: 101 - 13).

Audience

Margaret Sanger's speech begins by asserting that although the twentieth century supposed to “see this old world of ours converted into a beautiful garden of children,” as she quotes from the Swedish feminist Ellen Key, little progress made toward making it the century of children. Sanger continues with this analogy between raising a garden and raising children when she states, “You cannot have a garden, if you let weeds overrun it,” using it to prove the lack of success in creating a century of children. This analogy shapes much of the beginning of Sanger's speech, driving home the message because of simplicity and familiarity of gardening to the audience. A garden creates images of intimate, welcoming homes where children are not only taken care of, but adored, by the ...