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Paradox
Definition of Pathos
Pathos, along with logos and ethos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective speaking or writing). Pathos is an argument that appeals to... read full definition
Pathos, along with logos and ethos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective speaking or writing). Pathos is... read full definition
Pathos, along with logos and ethos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective... read full definition
Part 5, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—What a Heart She Has:
At the funeral dinner for her husband Semyen Marmeladov, his widowed wife Katerina Ivanovna—fatally afflicted with tuberculosis—wields pathos in defense of her stepdaughter Sonya, who has been falsely accused by Luzhin of stealing money from his room.
“Sonya! Sonya! I don’t believe them! You see I don’t believe them!” Katerina Ivanovna cried [...] “You still don’t know what a heart she has, what a girl she is! As if she would take anything! Why, she’d strip off her last dress and sell it, and go barefoot, and give everything to you if you needed it—that’s how she is! She got a yellow pass because my children were perishing from hunger, she sold herself for us!…Ah, husband, husband! Ah, my poor, dead husband! Do you see? Do you see? Here’s your memorial meal! Lord! But defend her!”
Facing the suspicious crowd of tenants and guests, Katerina launches into a passionate defense of the virtuous Sonya, calling attention to the girl’s pure “heart” and insisting that she would “strip off her last dress and sell it” if someone came to her with need. Emphasizing the girl’s kindness as well as her difficult circumstances, she acknowledges that Sonya is a sex worker but insists that she only ever engaged in such work in order to prevent her children and herself from “perishing from hunger.” Appealing to the emotions of those attending the dinner, she reminds them that they are attending the “memorial meal” for a dead man, her “poor, dead husband” who has been posthumously shamed by the suspicions against his daughter. Though her pathos-filled speech fails to convince most of the guests, later events will definitively prove Sonya’s innocence.
Related Themes:
