Margaret Atwood's Dichotomy

Speechwriters have the incredible power to advocate for social change, by accentuating the fundamentality of language and learning, through their use of rhetorical devices. Both Doris Lessing’s personal encounters with the Zimbabwe inequities, within her speech “On not winning the Nobel Prize” and Margaret Atwood’s “Spotty-handed Villainess”, fundamentally highlight the significance of language and learning as a means to encourage and advocate social change within its audience- primarily through the speeches’ clever use of rhetorical devices.

Doris Lessing’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech is one of incredible sentimentality as it highlights emphatically the absolute necessity of education, attempting to pursue greater equality and accessibility
Atwood’s clever use of language drives her argument on the progression on gender equality in literature; challenging the literary gender stereotypes, ‘Angel/Whore split’. A dichotomy is implemented as an attempt to acknowledge and deconstruct the one-sidedness of female identity and representation within literature and society. The opposing views among women is furthered through Atwood’s Historical & literary references, when cumulatively stating fictitious literary characters, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Lady Macbeth. Thusly, Atwood further delves into the idea that the role of women in society does not have to be restrained to a particular trait, predominantly, good, but instead have the fair and equal opportunity like men to be portrayed in a negative light. Henceforth, Atwood highlights the significance of language and learning as a mean to advocate social change, that being to accept the multi-dimensionality of women in society and
“We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women, who have years of education, to know nothing of the world...”. Lessing refers to a fragmenting culture in her argument in order to reiterate the fact that modern day society is continually expanding and dividing, with every ‘fragmentation’ dividing the world further apart. Thusly in this way Lessing attempts to construct her argument based on the irony of modern, well-developed and technologically established economies, being unable to simply provide a helping hand to the sufferers in Africa; “There is the gap. There is difficulty”. The truncated sentence appeals to logos acknowledging the undeniable inequality in education and deficit in fair opportunities; demonstrating how the orator’s passionate and very emotive language can instil encouragement and advocate of social change within its audience. Henceforth, Lessing has the fundamental power as a speech writer to highlight the significance of language and learning to advocate social change and justices; promoting Zimbabwe’s educational system as one that can be completely restored the world society unifies itself with