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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
Book 2, Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Isak’s Return:
Pachinko avoids emotional excess but packs a gut punch. At its most brutal moments, the novel chronicles the worst of human misfortunes and cruelties. That is the case when Noa returns home in Book 2, Chapter 4 one afternoon dramatic irony couples with pathos to heart-wrenching effect:
The man was sobbing now, and Noa felt bad for him. There were many poor people on the street, but no one looked as bad as this man. The beggar’s face was covered with sores and black scabs. Noa reached into his pocket and pulled out the coin. Afraid that the man might grab his leg, Noa stepped just close enough to place the coin on the floor near the man’s hand.
Noa’s encounter with Isak could not be any more tragic. Beaten, scabby, and deformed, Isak has been tortured in prison beyond even his son’s recognition. The narrator reveals the brutal scale of his suffering, sketching an almost graphic parody of the once “beautiful young man.” “Black scabs” and “jutting cheekbones” have ruined his former fine features, while his elbows resemble “sharp tree branches” beneath his clothes, and his lower teeth have “cracked off entirely.” These gruesome descriptions can only hint at the cruelty of Isak’s prison conditions, feeding directly into the scene’s heartache.
The dramatic irony makes this scene only more pitiful. In the moment, both Noa and the reader no longer recognize the “gaunt and filthy” “beggar” who stumbles thief-like into the house. Isak has been transformed to the point that he has lost his humanity, deprived of the most basic comforts that come with sympathy and briefly cast out by those closest to him.
Related Themes:
Book 3, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Tetsuo's Suicide:
In a story plenty tragic, Pachinko adds yet another moment of pathos as it recounts Tetsuo’s suicide. Haruki debriefs the case with Mozasu at his pachinko parlor and breaks down in Book 3, Chapter 7:
Haruki clasped his head with his right and closed his wet eyes.
‘The poor kid couldn’t take any more.’
‘Listen, man there’s nothing you can do. This country isn’t going to change.’
The dead high schooler in question is hardly a main character: Tetsuo begins as just another police case on Haruki’s file. And yet this scene sends a current of sadness. In a tender moment, Haruki’s conversation with his childhood friend seemingly distills the heavy anguish and grief of Japanese oppression. The high schooler’s death brings the two men to a painful breaking point; not even a police officer can hold back his tears. “The poor kid couldn’t take any more,” Haruki admits, a heartbreakingly somber admission of the reality in which they live.
The scene hurts most because of its quiet resignation. Tetsuo’s suicide awakens the darker sorrows and vulnerabilities within the men themselves. Haruki admits that he wanted to die; meanwhile, Mozasu recalls that “a bunch of knuckleheads would tell me to go back to Korea or to die a slow death.” Even more, the death leaves the two men in despair—Haruki and Mozasu are both victims of social oppression but powerless to change it. “This country isn’t going to change,” Mozasu explains. Having grieved and suffered, he and his friends can only look on.
Related Themes:
Book 3, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Noa’s Suicide:
Book 3, Chapter 8 closes with a blow of pathos. Desperate to reconnect, Sunja finally finds Isak outside his pachinko office during a lunch break after years of searching. But she loses him again—this time forever:
That evening, when Noa did not call her, she realized that she had not given him her home number in Yokohama. In the morning, Hansu phoned her. Noa had shot himself a few minutes after she’d left his office.
The scene announces Noa’s suicide with hardly more than a sentence. “Noa had shot himself a few minutes after she’d left his office,” the narrator explains with a restraint that belies the force of the grief. Yet the brevity emphasizes the tragic, unexpectedness. Through minimizing, Pachinko intensifies. It builds a devastating contrast between the weight of Noa’s aspirations and the sudden shock of his suicide. Sunja’s first child has yearned for a better life through decades of shame, studying, and self-loathing. He has erased his name, hidden his identity, and constructed his life anew, only to end it all with a single bullet. The moment feels somber in its abruptness. Noa’s suicide caps a moment that leaves the reader—and, even more, Sunja—with the tantalizing pain of having come within an arm’s reach of her child.
Related Themes:
