Initially, Kelley shows her view of child labor to the audience through identifying herself with them. She shows her own identity and view while challenging a similar identity of the audience. Kelley's use rhetorical questions such as “if the mothers and the teachers …show more content…
She also creates a strong appeal to pathos. Through her repetition of "while we sleep" and "freeing the children" Kelley forms a connection between the children and her audiences' consciences. She makes the audience feel that "none of us shall be able to free our consciences from participation in this great evil." Kelley makes the audience involved and responsible for this "great evil." She also accomplishes this pathos appeal due to her juxtaposition of the children to the mothers. She claims that while the mothers are sleeping, the children are working. The children are working to make goods the mothers will buy and use. This further stains the consciences of the mothers and others hearing her speech. She leaves the women wondering how they could be so fortunate, and the children so helpless. In addition, she appeals to the audiences' pathos by using examples and illustrations of children and their workplaces. The workplace is a "deafening noise," the little girls are "just tall enough to reach the bobbins," and one little girl is "carrying her pail of midnight luncheon as happier people carry their midday luncheon." Kelley's illustration of these girls gives yet another face to the issue of child labor. Kelley's strong pathos causes the audience to become involved in the child labor issue directly and ultimately persuades them to side with Kelley.
Kelley convinces her audience to