Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Yutaka Ozeki
Mrs. Hillesland
AP English 11 Integrated
5 February 2017
Beasts of burden provide the workload for a human so that the human can effortlessly
accomplish their task and in return grant safety. Humans find it acceptable to have the beast's
work for them once they have decided that the beast's body can survive the physical stress
coming from pulling the heavy loads. However, the little and young beastsawaiting to grow
and prove their abilities to workhave not matured enough to make decisions whether to obey
or reject orders, and have not developed their physical abilities to endure long hours of labor. In
her speech delivered during the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Florence
Kelley relates the little children who are having to work all night to little beasts of burden who
are still too young to work for companies. Kelley persuades her audience with her emphasis on
the working conditions of the little girls, along with repeating of phrases to convey the unfairness
Although her main point revolves around child labor, Kelley seems to side more on the
working girls. She adapts to her audience which is consisted of women, by bringing up examples
of little girls working. In particular, she makes the example of a 13 year old girl who had to work
on her birthday significant by her use of imagery of the girls day. The depressing action of
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carrying her pail of midnight luncheon as happier people carry their midday luncheon creates
empathy and anger among her audience towards the fact that young girls of the same gender are
working with bitterness. Also, since the female gender has been treated as inferior by men, the
grown up women who have been and still are receiving degrading treatments become frustrated,
thus increases motivation for the association to make a movement. Kelley makes use of her
evidence effectively, targeting the rage inside women which have resulted from the ever-lasting
The comparison between the lives of the children and adults strengthen Kelleys claim of
the cruel and unjust ruling of child labor. She repeats the phrase that children are working all
night while we sleep in order to create guiltiness in those who are given the privilege to rest at
night. Her diction of pitiful privilege creates irony in the fact that although children are given the
opportunity to mature and develop skills by being included in manufacturing, they are struggling
from their working conditions which are harsh enough to create pity in others. As she mentions
school life being taken away from children due to long work hours, adults feel the need for
immediate reform, for they do not want their own children having to be taken away from
education. It calls for short work hours which would allow children to balance out the time
Using the problem of child labor as a reason, Kelley encourages NAWSA to call for
voting rights, so that women can step farther into the problem. Primarily, the aim or goal of the
organization was to call for women's rights, since their traditional roles inside a family were not
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respected. Without respect towards the female role in a family, women became powerless even
in their own household, and having to become dependent on the profit men make. Kelley uses
the opportunity to focus on the increase of women's rights, along with the decrease of child
labor. She denounces the current system of the government by bringing up examples such as the
good law which stated that women and children were to stop work at six being repealed. The
evidence emphasizes a need for change in society, and as a first step, an increase in women's
rights could help. If women can cooperate with men by being included in the voting process,
then they could work on the task of freeing the children from the cruelty.
Little children have the willingness to work for their own family, in order to support them
or relieve a debt. They are little beasts filled with enthusiasm, who believe they are ready and are
innocent about the knowledge of society. They have to be protected and cared by their family,
gradually learning as they adapt to society. Kelley conveys a message to stop companies from
taking advantage of the innocence, willingness, enthusiasm of children, and thus urges the
interference by outsiders who need to realize the seriousness of the problem. And as she does so,
she warns that without the rescue of women, the cynical problem could not be solved. Without
women, companies could destroy futures of children, robbing the happiness and other cheery