Question 2;Abigail Adams

            On January 12, 1780, Abigail Adams writes a letter to John Quincy Adams, a United States diplomat and the country’s second president, on how she thinks he should run the country. Abigail Adams uses many rhetorical devices to persuade John Quincy Adams of how she wants his son to treat the country. John Quincy Adams is traveling abroad with his father John Adams on a voyage in discovering how it is like to lead a country. Abigail adams uses 3 rhetorical strategies to advise her son John Quincy Adams of what a good leader is such as; ethos, a motherly tone, and pathos.

                  Abigail Adams establishes ethos throughout the letter to advise her son John Quincy Adams in to becoming a great leader of his people. Ethos is an appeal to ethics, and it is a means of convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader. “It will be expected of you, my son, that, as you are favored with superior advantages under the instructive eye of a tender parent, your improvement should bear some proportion to your advantages.” Adams is advising him by using an ethical appeal, she wants him to believe her because she’s his mother. “All history will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities , which would otherwise lie dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and statesman.” She begins her sentence by “All history will convince you of this” which means she is using logical information and she is stating that history is evidence of what she is saying which makes her statement believable.
                 Another rhetorical device that is used throughout the essay is pathos. Pathos means persuading by appealing to the reader's emotions.”Some author, that I have met with, compares a judicious traveller to a river, that increases its stream the further it flows from its source; or to certain springs, which, running through rich veins of minerals, improve their qualities as they pass along.” Abigail Adams tries to appeal to John Quincy Adams’ emotions by mentioning an emotional story while advising him. “These are times in which a genius would wish to live, It is not in the still calm of life, or the response of a pacific station, that great characters are formed.” Adams tries to appeal to her sons emotions by giving him motivational speeches that every little decision he makes, will affect someone because now he will become someone very significant, so she advises him to be careful and not be a fool.

        Lastly, Adams uses a motherly tone to advise her son, John Quincy Adams. “The strict and inviolable regard you have ever paid to truth, gives me pleasing hopes that you will not swerve from her dictates, but add justice, fortitude, and every manly virtue which can adorn a good citizen, do honor to your country, and render your parents supremely happy, particularly your ever affectionate mother.”  Abigail Adams shows that she has high expectations towards her son and that she mostly expects him to always make the right decision and to honor his country and put his people first in every choice he makes. “Yet it is your lot, my son, to be an eyewitness of these calamities in your own native land, and, at  the same time,  to owe your existence among a people who have made a glorious defense of  their invaded liberties.” Abigail assures him that this is all his responsibility and to watch out for the bad people that will do anything to sabotage his people or land.

                      John Quincy Adams, the son of Abigail Adams is going to become president and Abigail Adams uses rhetorical strategies to advice him about his job and lead him the right way because she is his mother, Abigail Adams uses three rhetorical strategies in her letter which are; ethos, pathos, and a motherly tone. Abigail Adams is just a mother who cares deeply about her son, so she tries to advise him to do the right thing and to never let her down as like any mother wishes for her children but, Abigail expresses it in many rhetorical devices.