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Motifs
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
Volume 1, Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Alternate History:
In Volume 1, Chapter 4, Magawisca tells Everell about her own experience of the 1637 Mystic Massacre. Their exchange generates pathos, urging white readers to feel so overcome with emotion that they, like Everell, might consider that there is another side to the story:
Magawisca paused; she was overcome with the recollection of this scene of desolation. She looked upward with an intent gaze, as if she held communion with an invisible being. “Spirit of my mother!” burst from her lips. “Oh! that I could follow thee to that blessed land where I should no more dread the war-cry, nor the death-knife.” Everell dashed the gathering tears from his eyes, and Magawisca proceeded in her narrative.
Everell knows that Magawisca's mother died after this massacre, but Magawisca has not yet described the way Monoca died of a broken heart because so many of her people were killed. Among the dead was her son, Samoset, and Monoca could not handle the depth of her grief. In this passage, Magawisca pauses right before describing how Samoset died. A prayer to her dead mother's spirit "bursts" out of her. She says that she wishes she could join Monoca in "that blessed land" (heaven) because she would be free of the conflict and violence that is a part of her everyday life.
Magawisca's emotion here is likely prompted by her reflection on the most painful part of her story, which she is about to tell. Even not knowing what she is going to say about Samoset, Everell is moved to tears by his sympathy for Magawisca. Everell, a white child, is a stand-in for the young white reader Sedgwick envisions for her book. His tears signal to this white reader that it is appropriate to be greatly moved by Magawisca's account. She is giving an account that challenges the notion (dominant in many white communities) of white settlers as innocent victims of frontier violence. By drawing on Everell and the reader's feelings, Magawisca urges serious consideration of her side of the story.
In particular, the pathos of this scene helps Sedgwick convey the point Magawisca has made before starting her story:
["W]hen the hour of vengeance comes, if it should come, remember it was provoked.”
Sedgwick is participating in a literary trend of using sentimentality to win readers over to a political perspective. She does not go so far as to suggest that white colonists should acknowledge American Indian sovereignty, but she does use Magawisca's traumatic tale to walk white readers to the conclusion that colonial violence deserves retribution, or at the very least that it has exacerbated violence on all sides.
Related Themes:
