Use of Pathos in Writings on Torture Essay - 1499 Words

Torture is a loaded word. It conjures images in a readers mind of any number of horrors, physical and mental. Many writers rely on this reaction and use pathos in their articles to illicit a strong response in their audience. Pathos is an emotional appeal used to gain sympathy and trust from the audience and works for people of all intellectual levels. It often casts the author or characters in a story as an Everyman, easy to identify, and therefore see eye to eye, with. In my opinion, the more an author is able to create a personal connection to torture, the stronger their argument becomes. Strong emotions create a more appealing argument for an everyday audience. Michael Levins â€Å"The Case for Torture† uses a few moments of pathos to†¦show more content†¦He talks about prisoners being packaged and rendered, two terms that allude to meat packaging. Pathos relies on this kind of unconscious word recognition in the reader to heighten awareness and sensitivity. I thi nk these articles are good but they lack true kick-in-the-guts emotional power. They talk about torture in the abstract, as something that happens to other people, a â€Å"what if?† situation. They difficult to relate to for an audience that is uninformed or undereducated about a topic. â€Å"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas†, meanwhile, is ripe with the necessary emotional pull. This is accomplished in part through its genre: it is a fictional short story, not a news or journal article. Ursula Le Guin begins her story by painting an elaborate pictures of an almost surreal, perfect place. Suddenly, however, the story becomes sinister – all of the beauty what weve seen is dependent on the continued torture of one small child. Everyone in town knows about this torture but no one is willing to do anything to stop it knowing that everything they have relies upon its suffering. Only a few people are brave enough to walk away from the town rather than be party to th e abuse. While Le Guins story seems fantastic, it is rooted in reality. She describes the citizens of Omelas at the beginning of the piece as ordinary people, â€Å"not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble savages, bland utopians. They wereShow MoreRelatedEssay on Logical, Ethical, and Emotional Argumentation998 Words   |  4 PagesMany people and organizations use writing and visual methods to persuade readers to their view. In such pieces, the author will use many different tricks and appeals in order to draw the reader to his or her train of thought. According to Andrea Lunsford in her instructional book The Everyday Writer, these appeals can be broken down into three main types – logical, emotional and ethical. A logical argument uses facts, statistics and surveys to back up what the author is saying and is commonly referredRead MoreThe Morality Of Torture Is Always Morally Wrong977 Words   |  4 Pages The morality of torture has been debated for years. 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