Questions for Understanding the
Letter from Abigail Adams
AP Analysis Passage for 2014 Exam
Why does she begin the letter as she
does? What is her tone?
• I hope that you have had no occasion, either
from enemies or the dangers of the sea, to
repent your second voyage to France. If I had
thought your reluctance arose from proper
deliberation, or that you were capable of
judging what was most for your own benefit, I
should not have urged you to accompany your
father and brother when you appeared to
averse to the voyage.
Emotional, logical, or ethical appeal?
• You, however, readily submitted to my advice,
and, I hope, will never have occasion yourself,
nor give me reason, to lament it. Your
knowledge of the language must give you
greater advantages now than you could
possibly have reaped whilst ignorant of it; and
as you increase in years, you will find your
understanding opening and daily improving.
How is a traveler like a rive?
• Some author, that I have met with, compares
a judicious traveler to a river, that increases its
stream the further it flows from its source; or
to certain springs, which, running through rich
veins of minerals, improve their qualities as
they pass along.
What does Abigail Adams mean in the
following lines?
• Nothing is wanting with you but attention,
diligence, and steady application. Nature has
not been deficient.
What is message of lines 27-49?
• These are the times in which a genius would
wish to live…to ages yet unborn.
What is Adams appealing to in lines
50-56?
• Nor ought it be one of the least of your
incitements towards exerting every power and
faculty of your mind, that you have a parent
who has taken so large and active a share in
this contest, and discharged the trust reposed
in him with so much satisfaction as to be
honored with the important embassy which at
present calls him abroad.
Why does Adams end the letter the
way she does? How is her ending
difference than the beginning of the
letter?
• The strict and inviolable regard you have ever
paid to truth, gives me pleasing hopes that you
will not swerve from her dictates, but add justice,
fortitude, and every manly virtue which can
adorn a good citizen, do honor to your country,
and render your parents supremely happy,
particularly your ever affectionate mother.
Score this analysis of syntax
• After opening with her argument that her son
has made the right choice to go abroad,
Adams addresses the more general benefits of
traveling. She says that a “judicious traveler” is
like a “river” using a long sentence. Then, she
talks about the “minerals” the river gathers
along the way. A traveler gains new
knowledge much like the minerals gained as a
river flows. This analogy makes her argument
more interesting and holds the audience’s
attention.
Score this analysis of diction
Adams begins her letter by expressing her sharp
insistence that her son has made the correct choice
in taking her advice to go abroad. Adams dismisses
her sons initial “reluctance” as not something that
came from “proper deliberation,” insisting that he is
not “capable of judging” what is best for himself.
The formality of this language sets a stern tone, an
attitude of a mother who is speaking from
experience. She begins the letter by acknowledging
her son’s young age in order to highlight her
credibility as an authority, as a woman who has
lived longer and knows better.