Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying

Adrienne Rich was a feminist, writer, and poet. Many give Rich credit for helping women come out of the closet and accept their other rights. She is well educated and very influential in the emerging women's' rights movement. In her piece, Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying, Rich litters the pages with rhetorical techniques that create a fascinating read that convinces the reader of how much damage can be caused by women lying. 

Rich opens her piece with litotes . She explains the honors of a man and then how completely different the honors of women are. 

She also uses anaphora as a way to drive a point. On page 413 she repeats, "But the liar," on page 414, "It is important," on page 415, "Women have always," on page 417, "The liar is always" and "She is afraid". These are the points intended to drive home. And they do. 

Later, Rich uses colloquial writing and creates a new conversational aspect by referring to the reader as you. She writes, "It isn't that to have an honourable relationship with you, I have to understand everything, or tell you everything at once, or that I can know, beforehand, everything I need to tell you." This brings her more personally into my perception of her words and helps me feel even more connected to her. 

Rich ends her work with use of metonymy. She equates the ideas of truth and life by writing, "That we both know we are trying, all the time, to extend the possibilities of truth between us. The possibility of life between us." This captures what Rich wants the reader to leave with. Lying can damage you. She does an excellent job of achieving her purpose of teaching the audience this. 

The Truth Will Set You Free

You can cage yourself. 

John 8:32 http://dgillespi8034.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html