FEMALE
ORATORS “Female Orators” is a wonderful
essay written in the words of Joseph Addison. The subject of the essay is very light as the title suggests & displays the wit, grace & clarity in the style of the author. It is basically a satire on female orators.
Addison starts his essay with the classification of female orators. The first
kind of female orators are employed in stirring up the passions. The second kind of female orators are commonly known by the name of censorious. They attack in bitter words. Their third kind may be comprehended under the word gossips. Their fourth kind is coquette, the society woman who flirts.
According to Addison, women have the talent for ready utterance in so much greater perfection than
men because they don’t have retentive power for suppressing their thoughts as men have. They are necessitated to
speak everything they think. The author also supported the view of Hudibras who compared woman’s
tongue to a race horse. The race horse runs faster if it carries lesser weight on it &women speak with the greatest fluency as they talk on trifles.
The purpose of author in this essay is to make fun of speaking power of women. He wants to say that women speak more than men do. He also says that if a woman’s tongue is cut down then also it starts speaking. He is also in favour with the thought of the Irishman that a woman’s tongue feels happiness when she is sleeping as her tongue gets rest at that time. His aim in using the quotations of other poets & authors is to make his explanation humorous.
Addison’s views have a strong male bias as he thinks that men are more intelligent than women. He thinks that women can’t speak & think intelligibly & gossiping is their habit. He says that women can’t conceal their thoughts & emotions but men can do this very well. He is not doing justice with women. There is no such proof given by science so far that men are wiser than women. Men enjoy gossiping as much as women do. There are many known women celebrities who reach on the top because of their intelligence & wit. At the same time there are many men who speak unnecessarily.
Although in the starting it seems that Addison is admiring the speaking power of women but in actual, he is making fun of the non-stop motion of their tongues in the whole essay. It is only in the last when he is giving some constructive advice. He wants that women must attune their tongues & speeches with good nature, truth, discretion & sincerity & make control on their anger, censoriousness, gossiping & coquetry.
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