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Mood
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
Pathos
Explanation and Analysis—I Will Be Good:
The narrator appeals to the reader’s sense of pathos as they describe the pitiful sounds the imprisoned scapegoat child makes. The auditory imagery of this harrowing passage brings the tortured child’s ordeal to life for the reader:
The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother's voice, sometimes speaks. "I will be good," it says. "Please let me out. I will be good!" They never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, "eh-haa, eh-haa," and it speaks less and less often.
This passage makes the reader feel complicit in listening to the scapegoat child's desperate pleas and the utter neglect it faces. The child’s remembered experiences of sunlight and its mother’s voice make the darkness and isolation it’s forced to live in feel far worse. It has known happiness but is now utterly alone and unloved. Part of the appeal to pathos here also comes from the fact that the child’s imprisonment is never explained to it: it begs to be released, promising it "will be good" and screaming for help. Because it doesn’t know why it has been imprisoned, it tries anything it can to make its jailers let it out. The sounds of the child's diminishing pleas and its shift from screaming to the weak, plaintive whining "eh-haa, eh-haa" are rendered in painfully detailed, realistic language. These sounds, especially in the way they hopelessly decline, make the cruelty afoot in Omelas all the more immediate and distressing for the reader.
Related Themes:
