P.A.T.H.O.S.

Pathos, is one of Aristotle’s three rhetoric’s of persuasion.  It is and emotional appeal, popular in advertisements.  It engages in an audiences emotions of love, fear, happiness, sadness, sympathy, regret, remorse,  etc.  Although sometimes all three rhetoric’s work together, sometimes pathos is the strongest, because it touches nervous that are important and powerful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAxOtp4vDJQ

The above link is a commercialfor Pedigree dog food.  It is a powerful use of pathos.  First off, the music is very slow and soft.  They use the cutest, saddest looking dogs around.  Then, the narrator speaks as if he was one of the dogs: “I know how to sit….but what I don’t know is how i ended up in here (a cage).”  Then the music becomes more uplifting and the dogs tails wag, which shows that there is a way to change that feeling of sadness, which is what we want to do right?  So, it says if you buy pedigree they will donate to help dogs.

In particular, Douglas’ narrative used pathos very well.  It makes you feel bad that he was treated so poorly and in such ways, we cannot even begin to imagine.  In particular, the line, “A nigger should know nothing, but to obey his master-”  It makes me feel angry that he was deprived of something so vital to a persons existence as a human being. Something that we take for granted is something that he wanted most in life, but it was also something that was used as power.

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