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Dramatic Irony
Definition of Ethos
Ethos, along with logos and pathos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective speaking or writing). Ethos is an argument that appeals to... read full definition
Ethos, along with logos and pathos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective speaking or writing). Ethos is... read full definition
Ethos, along with logos and pathos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective... read full definition
The First Epoch: Part 2, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Credentials of Narrators:
At multiple occasions when a new narrator appears in the novel, especially if it is a more minor character, the given narrator employs logos, ethos, or pathos to convince the reader of their relevance to the story and credibility as a witness.
Walter is the novel's main narrator. Nevertheless, he is absent for parts of the First Epoch and for all but the very end of the Second Epoch. During these parts, Marian serves as his right-hand woman and narrates the events he is absent for. There are also key events that Marian is absent for, however. When neither Walter nor Marian is fit to provide details, other characters step in. To present the reader with a continuous narrative, Walter compiles the letters and testimony from a range of characters to tell the story.
Mr. Gilmore, the Fairlie family's lawyer, serves as one of these tertiary narrators. At the start of his narrative in the second part of the First Epoch, he justifies his reason for appearing as a narrator:
The plan [Walter] has adopted for presenting the story to others, in the most truthful and most vivid manner, requires that it should be told, at each successive stage in the march of events, by the persons who were directly concerned in those events at the time of their occurrence. My appearance here, as narrator, is the necessary consequence of this arrangement.
Before taking up the narration, Mr. Gilmore uses ethos by stating exactly which events he was present for. He proceeds to use logos to present his appearance as a "necessary consequence." Another tertiary narrator is Mrs. Michelson, the housekeeper at Blackwater. She takes over the narration when Marian's sickness makes her unable to keep her diary in the third part of the Second Epoch. Mrs. Michelson also begins her narrative with a justification:
The reason given for making this demand on me is, that my testimony is wanted in the interests of truth. As the widow of a clergyman of the Church of England (reduced by misfortune to the necessity of accepting a situation), I have been taught to place the claims of truth above all other considerations.
Pointing to her late husband's work as a clergyman, Mrs. Michelson employs ethos to persuade the reader of her upright and trustworthy character. She also employs pathos by stating that her widowhood forced her to find a way to support herself, suggesting that a woman in her unfortunate circumstances would have no reason to lie.
Hester Pinhorn, Count Fosco's servant, briefly serves as a narrator. Because she can't write, she "humbly [begs] the gentleman who takes this down to put [her] language right as he goes on, and to make allowances for [her] being no scholar." She employs ethos in her affirmation of knowing right from wrong and pathos in assuring the reader that her humble position in life has made her "a hard-working woman" with "a good character." Following his very short narrative, the doctor, Alfred Goodricke, establishes his authority by providing his signature and his credentials as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons.
Related Themes:
The Second Epoch: Part 3, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Credentials of Narrators:
At multiple occasions when a new narrator appears in the novel, especially if it is a more minor character, the given narrator employs logos, ethos, or pathos to convince the reader of their relevance to the story and credibility as a witness.
Walter is the novel's main narrator. Nevertheless, he is absent for parts of the First Epoch and for all but the very end of the Second Epoch. During these parts, Marian serves as his right-hand woman and narrates the events he is absent for. There are also key events that Marian is absent for, however. When neither Walter nor Marian is fit to provide details, other characters step in. To present the reader with a continuous narrative, Walter compiles the letters and testimony from a range of characters to tell the story.
Mr. Gilmore, the Fairlie family's lawyer, serves as one of these tertiary narrators. At the start of his narrative in the second part of the First Epoch, he justifies his reason for appearing as a narrator:
The plan [Walter] has adopted for presenting the story to others, in the most truthful and most vivid manner, requires that it should be told, at each successive stage in the march of events, by the persons who were directly concerned in those events at the time of their occurrence. My appearance here, as narrator, is the necessary consequence of this arrangement.
Before taking up the narration, Mr. Gilmore uses ethos by stating exactly which events he was present for. He proceeds to use logos to present his appearance as a "necessary consequence." Another tertiary narrator is Mrs. Michelson, the housekeeper at Blackwater. She takes over the narration when Marian's sickness makes her unable to keep her diary in the third part of the Second Epoch. Mrs. Michelson also begins her narrative with a justification:
The reason given for making this demand on me is, that my testimony is wanted in the interests of truth. As the widow of a clergyman of the Church of England (reduced by misfortune to the necessity of accepting a situation), I have been taught to place the claims of truth above all other considerations.
Pointing to her late husband's work as a clergyman, Mrs. Michelson employs ethos to persuade the reader of her upright and trustworthy character. She also employs pathos by stating that her widowhood forced her to find a way to support herself, suggesting that a woman in her unfortunate circumstances would have no reason to lie.
Hester Pinhorn, Count Fosco's servant, briefly serves as a narrator. Because she can't write, she "humbly [begs] the gentleman who takes this down to put [her] language right as he goes on, and to make allowances for [her] being no scholar." She employs ethos in her affirmation of knowing right from wrong and pathos in assuring the reader that her humble position in life has made her "a hard-working woman" with "a good character." Following his very short narrative, the doctor, Alfred Goodricke, establishes his authority by providing his signature and his credentials as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons.
Related Themes:
The Third Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—A Respectable Woman:
When Walter goes to visit Mrs. Catherick, she believes he has come with the intention of ruining her reputation. Using ethos, Mrs. Catherick scornfully explains that she has come to be seen as a respectable woman in her local community, despite what her neighbors know about her past. Although she arrived as "a wronged woman," she methodically proves to Walter that she stands "high enough in this town to be out of [his] reach."
Mrs. Catherick uses a number of details as proof of her respectability, such as the fact that the minister—likely the village's foremost figure of authority—bows to her when he passes her house. This is something she is clearly obsessively proud of, but she also presents him with additional proof of her good reputation. For example, she urges Walter to visit various institutions and people in the village to inquire about her:
Go to the church, and inquire about me—you will find Mrs. Catherick has her sitting, like the rest of them, and pays the rent on the day it’s due. Go to the town-hall. There’s a petition lying there; a petition of the respectable inhabitants against allowing a Circus to come and perform here and corrupt our morals: yes! OUR morals. I signed that petition this morning. Go to the bookseller’s shop. The clergyman’s Wednesday evening Lectures on Justification by Faith are publishing there by subscription—I’m down on the list.
As she lists her achievements, Mrs. Catherick also invokes Walter's mother, suggesting that she is more respectable than Mrs. Hartright in several ways:
Is your mother alive? Has she got a better Bible on her table than I have got on mine? Does she stand better with her tradespeople than I do with mine? Has she always lived within her income? I have always lived within mine.
In her mission to prove her own respectability, Mrs. Catherick passionately seizes all the evidence she can think of to persuade Walter that she has claimed back her character since moving to the town. With a speech that is built on ethos, the character appeals to a number of figures and institutions with authority in the town to bolster her argument.
Related Themes:
The Third Epoch: Part 4, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Fosco's Great Men:
During Count Fosco's narrative, he explains that he is a skilled chemist. In order to convince his reader of his knowledge of chemistry, he combines ethos with allusion. Invoking a series of great historical figures, Count Fosco claims that he could easily have changed the course of cultural, intellectual, or political history by traveling back in time and exercising his chemistry on them.
The first figure that Count Fosco alludes to is William Shakespeare:
Give me—Fosco—chemistry; and when Shakespeare has conceived Hamlet, and sits down to execute the conception— with a few grains of powder dropped into his daily food, I will reduce his mind, by the action of his body, till his pen pours out the most abject drivel that has ever degraded paper.
Count Fosco claims that with just "a few grains of powder" he could have incapacitated Shakespeare and kept him from writing his magnum opus. He goes on, once again emphasizing his authority by claiming that he could have swayed the mind of one of history's most influential mathematicians and physicists, Sir Isaac Newton:
Under similar circumstances, revive me the illustrious Newton. I guarantee that, when he sees the apple fall, he shall eat it, instead of discovering the principle of gravitation.
The mention of the apple is a reference to the legend that Newton formulated his law of gravitational theory after watching an apple fall, when he was led to ponder why the apple fell down instead of sideways or even upward. Count Fosco proceeds to the realm of famous rulers, alluding to the Roman emperor Nero and the Macedonian king Alexander the Great in a single sentence:
Nero’s dinner, shall transform Nero into the mildest of men, before he has done digesting it; and the morning draught of Alexander the Great, shall make Alexander run for his life, at the first sight of the enemy, the same afternoon.
Nero is known for having been a tyrannical leader, and Alexander changed the course of history by creating one of the world's largest empires. It is therefore a bold assertion on the Count's part that he would have been able to turn them into mild and timid men.
Count Fosco's allusions to these great men during his narrative serve his purpose of emphasizing his own authority. Proving that he is well-versed in history, he uses ethos to argue that he is a skilled chemist and more broadly that he is a smart man. Count Fosco does not shy away from placing himself within this lineage of great figures who have had significant influence on the world. It seems like he believes he ought to be remembered centuries after his lifetime, just like the four men he mentions.
