Letter To His Son Of Lord Chesterfield

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Every father has a certain way of motivating his son, in the 18th century, things may have been a little dissimilar than they are today with parenting. In this excerpt of a letter from Lord Chesterfield to his son, Chesterfield both criticizes and praises his son. Using rhetorical devices such as anastrophe and metaphors, tonal shift, and rhetorical questions to convey his careful yet brutal tone throughout to assure his son of his place. Using metaphors to portray his sons values, Lord Chesterfield builds his son up, only to provide all the upsets that could occur within his near future. Lord Chesterfield warns his son of all the problems he could possibly encounter, referring to them as “thorns and briars which scratched and disfigured me in the course of [my youth.]”. Imagery, also included in this metaphor was another technique used in many of Lord Chesterfields metaphors. Frightened that his son will make the same mistakes he did, Lord Chesterfield emphasizes his points with numerous metaphors, and later using anastrophe. He uses anastrophe in contradicting his points, uses it as an understatement. The anastrophe he…show more content…
Rhetorical questions, a question asked solely to produce an effect or to make an assertion and not to elicit a reply, are used to stress certain points Chesterfield makes. In using these, he reflects his values and guilt to his son. In openly stating to his son “Can there be a greater pleasure than to be universally allowed to excel those of one’s own age and manner of life?” Chesterfield tells his son that if he follows his advice, and does everything right then success will be his. Later in the conclusion paragraph, Chesterfields alert tone returns, and proves that his son has two roads he can take in his life, showing his guilt and hope that his son will not follow in his footsteps toward failure and lower class
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