Michael's Analysis of "The Solitude of Self"

In 1848 Elizabeth Stanton played a driving force in Seneca Falls, the first push towards women’s rights. Stanton, from that point on, was a major contributor to the women’s rights movement. In her article, “The Solitude of Self”, she presents an argument to her contemporary audience for women’s rights, by using pathos, logos, and metaphor’s, in an attempt to make them see the importance of a women’s role in society.

From the beginning of the article, Stanton uses logos to appeal to the logic of her audience, in order to convince them to support women’s rights. One of the strongest appeals to logic that Stanton uses is when she says “If we consider her as a citizen, as a member of a great nation, she must have the same rights as all other members, according to the fundamental principles of our government.” (163). by this statement alone, Stanton claims her rights. However, she continues on in her article to then describe how, that just because women have the role of wife, mother, or sister, doesn’t mean that they should be made to act a certain way or do specific things. Women should be allowed to pursue anything that a man can, because she can do it just as well, if not better, than he can.

Stanton also explains that because of the basic need for survival, a woman must be allowed to do, and learn anything she wants. In her description of “Solitude of Self” she describes each person as being alone. No two people are alike, and no two people will every experience the same thing. When the time comes a woman will have to stand alone, without the support of her husband. If when this time comes she must have the necessary skills and experience. The only way to learn and develop these skills and gain experience is to exercise her rights and duties in society, of which, at the time that the article is written, are none.

Pathos, or the appeal to emotion, is also shown in Stanton’s article when she tells a story about a little girl, who on Christmas didn’t receive any presents. The little girl then spent the whole night out in a field, and was found the next day sobbing. Other people, upon hearing about the little girl, sent her many gifts. However, Stanton goes on to explain that “in the hours of her keenest suffering she was thrown wholly on herself for consolation” this appeals to the audiences emotions by making them feel sad for the little girl, and therefore make them more willing to accept Stanton’s argument for women’s rights, because they don’t want to have something similar to the story of the little girl, happen again, when it can be avoided.

Stanton uses many metaphors in her article, which help to give substance to her argument. One such of these metaphors is when she quotes another writer in telling a story of a man who was crossing the Atlantic ocean, and went out on to the deck of the ship at midnight and was utterly “swallowed up in by a tremendous darkness. . . around me lay a huge confusion of rocks, out of which the gigantic ice peaks shot into the measureless blue of the heavens, and against my only feeling was. . . solitude.” This metaphor is a physical representation of “the solitude of self”. That even when you are around people, in the quickness of life, there will be a time, like when he went onto the deck of the ship, where you are utterly and completely alone, and if there is a storm, you need to have the skills to be able to handle it, Skills that you are not able to learn without being able to be an active participant in society.

When first considering the idea of “The Solitude of Self”, it may seem that it isn’t relevant to the argument of women’s rights. However, Stanton, through her use of Logos, Pathos, and metaphors is able to eloquently argue for women’s rights, to give women a place in society, through the idea of “The Solitude of Self”.