Ozeki 1

Yutaka Ozeki

Mrs. Hillesland

AP English 11 Integrated

5 February 2017

The Need for Cooperation

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

of child labor and connect it to gender inequality.

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

factor of gender inequality.

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

between school and work, or the complete elimination of child labor.

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

characteristics from a child.