What Are Some of the Ideas Found in the Speeches Essay Example
What Are Some of the Ideas Found in the Speeches Essay Example

What Are Some of the Ideas Found in the Speeches Essay Example

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  • Pages: 4 (958 words)
  • Published: March 29, 2017
  • Type: Essay
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Margaret Atwood and Aung San Suu Kyi’s empowering speeches have spanned across decades, united in their aim to draw attention to a lack of freedom, justice and democratic rights towards women, their outspoken ideas and reception remain relevant within our changing society regardless of altering values. In addition, both women have shown their understanding of the contemporary form, and use their words in a way that conveys both a particular meaning but also includes a mix of colloquialism, cultural literacy references, and universal symbolism that ensure their speeches are more memorable, significant and resonant with their respective audiences.

Atwood begins her speech by quoting a famous nursery rhyme from her childhood: “there was a little girl who had a little curl”. She uses her personal experience with this poem to present her early understanding of the multifaceted ro

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les of women and to introduce the subject of her speech – women in literature. At the same time, she uses the personal significance this poem held for her to gain a personal connection with her audience.

Throughout “Spotty-handed Villainesses”, Atwood uses many language features and techniques that help her complex ideas get through to the audience. Firstly, Atwood explores the changing role of women in society through literary allusion, paying initial attention to Lady Macbeth. The notion of “spots” in her speech refers to characters with villainous traits typical of the human condition – women are real people, capable of doing ‘bad deeds’. A character with “spots” makes them more interesting in that they have flaws; they are not perfect; they are merely human and are capable of equal measures of right and wrong.

Before fully exploring this notion, Atwood

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carefully sets the scene by describing – in almost simplistic terms – the idea of what a novel or literature is. She does this firstly by drawing upon a personal anecdote about her 5 year old daughters ‘eternal breakfast’ play and then by giving examples of what she believes a novel is not e.g. novels are not sociological textbooks, novels are not political tracts and novels are not how-to books.

Atwood then describes the new age in which literature has been introduced into, “we live in an age of not only gender crossover but of genre crossover, so you can throw all of the above into the cauldron and stir”, and this provides more options for women to hold the power instead of men. According to Atwood, the Women’s Movement provided a number of benefits to literature, specifically the expansion of the territory available to writers; women could now get all the “juicy parts” that had before been occupied by man. However, she mentions that there was also a tendency to “cookie cut” – to polarize morality by gender and represent women as intrinsically good, and men as bad. This allowed women characters to rebel.

The key point of both Atwood and Suu Kyi speeches is that they both try to redefine the identity of females and their role in society. Atwood tries to show that women have the ability to play the man’s role and Suu Kyi believes that women can teach men how to conduct themselves in a non-violent manner in problematic situations e.g. war.

In Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech, she speaks with deep conviction regarding the lack of freedom that women suffer. Her speech

focuses on the role of women in government, society and politics to “struggle for justice and peace” in the world. She expresses her belief that this role should be centered on the biological qualities women possess and their dedication to “nurturing, protecting and caring for the young and the old”. These qualities ‘imposed on’ women enable them to play an important role in inciting political and social change. She further more reduces the contribution of men by using negative emotive language – “patronizing behaviour or exploitation” and ”patriarchal domination and degradation”.

She brings about the hardships women have had to suffer as consequences for the men’s actions; the consequences are the women having to “face the harsh challenges of the world outside while continuing to discharge their duties within the home”.

Suu Kyi provides political statistics to add credibility to her argument by stating that “14 out of the 485 MPs elected in 1990 were women” and that “no war was ever started by women”. While this last point may not be 100% true, it makes the audience question the real contribution men make to society other than protection and highlights the lack of female representatives in Burma. She makes the audience question themselves further with the use of rhetorical questions. For example, “But is this really a weakness? Could it not be infact a strength? Suu Kyi further argues this point of men’s contribution by implying that the home is the women’s domain/safe place and yet men can still “subject cruelty within the heart of the family”.

Her last argument is that “the education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a

more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all” she uses similes to illustrate how women should use their biological qualities to nurture loved ones, “tender as mothers nursing their newly born, brave as lionesses defending their young”.

Both Atwood and Suu Kyi address the issue of equality for women, Atwood uses anecdotes and personal references to convey her message of women in literature, whilst Suu Kyi sticks to facts. Atwood’s speech, in my opinion, would have a more positive impact on the contemporary audience through her use of effective arguments, personal anecdotes, colloquialism as well as drawing from literary examples. Both Atwood and Suu Kyi speeches, with their outspoken ideas and reception, will remain relevant within our changing society regardless of altering values.

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