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Categories of ethos,pathos and logos
Humor in the modest proposal
Logos pathos and ethos topics
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Recommended: Categories of ethos,pathos and logos
Ethos, Pathos and Logos are persuasive appeals used to make the reader see things from the writer’s point of view. “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift and “Lifeboat Ethics” by Garrett Hardin are both widely known for their arguments regarding helping the poor. As great writers Swift and Hardin employ all three forms of appeals in their writings.
Logos is the idea of a logical argument. Throughout Swift’s essay he uses logos by making cannibalism sound logical. In paragraph fourteen he says , “I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shilling for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat. This argument sounds pretty logical, right? Children are nutritious and cheap, so why not eat them? The structure of Hardin’s essay appeals to the logos of his audience. He follows a clear progression which develops and validates his ideas concerning assistance for the poor. Through his logos structured argument his audience is able to clearly see his reasoning. Pathos is the idea of using emotion to convince people. Humans use pathos on a daily basis, whether intentional or not. In paragraph 17 he states, “But as to myself, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I
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Swift encourages us to believe him because he is a worthy, virtuous person gave him the idea because “so great a number of both sexes in every country being now ready to starve, for want of work and service”, paragraph seventeen. However, Hardin uses a sense of ethos through his selection of statistical evidence. “In the years 1960 to 1970, U.S. taxpayers spent a total of $7.9 billion on the Food for Peace program. Between 1948 to 1970, they also paid an additional $50 billion for other economic-aid programs, some of which went for food and food-producing machinery and technology”, paragraph
Pathos is the author's use of emotions and sympathy to urge the audience to agree with his or her standpoint. And lastly, logos apply sound reasoning (logic) to attract the typical ideas of the audience and to prove the author's point of view. "Lockdown" by Evans D. Hopkins is a fine example of an author using these appeals to persuade his audience. Hopkins uses of the three appeals are easy to locate and relate to throughout the entire passage. He undoubtedly uses rhetoric to try and keep his audiences focused and to persuade them to feel the way he does about the treatment of prisoners.
Edlund, John R. Ethos, Logos, Pathos: Three Ways to Persuade.” Cal Poly Pomona, n.d. Web. 6
One example of Logos is found in paragraph 9: “Three of every five Americans are overweight. One of every five is obese.” Pollan is using a statistic in order to emphasize to his reader the point he is intending to make. Another excellent example of logos would be, “Since the Nixon administration, farmers in the United States have managed to produce 500 additional calories per person every day (up from 3,000, already substantially more than we need); each of us is, heroically managing to put away 200 of those surplus calories at the end of their trip up the food chain.” Most Americans would find this statistic staggering as well as impactful as considering their options in the republic of fat. Another example is when he stated, “Since 1997, an American’s average daily intake of calories has jumped by more than ten percent.” This statistic is showing how the change in calories is increasing our unhealthy eating
- The best example is to keep the logo as clean and clean as possible, Google company logo
The obvious lack of ethics and morals in this passage cements that this essay is satirical and should not be understood as a legitimate solution to the starvation issue. He later listed the advantages of a system that breeds children for food, these advantages are all very unethical simply based off the fact that they are benefits of eating infants. Swift mentioned ideas including the murder of Catholic babies, eating humans as a fun custom, and giving the poor something of value (their own children). His use of ethos shows the audience that the essay is satirical and emphasizes the extreme ridiculousness of his ideas. Swift’s use of these three devices created a captivating and somewhat humorous satire.
In his essay A Modest Proposal the author uses perhaps the most extreme idea he could think of. While it was done with good intentions, its interpretation was lost in the shock value. The majority of people over looked his writing, refusing to take it seriously enough to look at the message being conveyed. Perhaps a better approach would have been to not be so extreme and graphic in his proposal. In its relation to Baum’s Wizard of Oz, they don’t share many ideals. For example, Baum’s story is that of good winning over evil. Each character digs deep enough to accomplish something that amounts to success in their eyes. Baum gives the illusion that he believes in human nature. In contrast, Swift’s essay is an example of limitations, or a lack thereof. He portrays an idea that in his perspective is only one step away from happening. Swift’s essay connects the literal meaning of cannibalism with the sense that the upper class and England are consuming the lower classes’ lives, money, and families. One way the stories relate is in how they came to a resolution. In the Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West was killed. The way in which she was ended also has a meaning of its own: sometimes the answer is right in front of you. A Modest Proposal presents a similar solution. The stories correlate in the answers they give. Swift’s essay also uses death as a solution to Ireland’s problem. While his is on a more
For some, an argument may be a discussion that leads people to become mad and feel hate towards someone. This also might bring tension, between friends and family, but there’re times when people just want to discuss a topic that they feel would make the conflict better or resolved. When an argument happens, it’s recommended to use Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle. It is here that Aristotle set’s up three ways to appeal to the audience, which are ethos, pathos, and logos. These three appeals help the writer to persuade, inform, or convince the audience that what he/she is doing the right thing. Without Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle and Aims of Arguments, the writer would unsuccessfully perform an argument correctly. If creditability of the
One of the rhetorical appeals that Edwards uses in his sermon is pathos. In the
By appealing so much to pathos, his letter focuses more on emotionally convincing and persuading the reader to accept his claim, rather than providing facts and logic to his argument. His combined use of logos and ethos also adds an aspect of logic and reason to his argument, as well as further showing his credibility and connection to the subject as the author. His use of the three rhetorical devices helps to bolster and support his claim, while also personalizing and connecting with the
...ing some actual proposals that would work to ease the pain for the poor. Swift writes that the rich could quit being so proud and selfish and have “at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants” (Swift). Swift feels despair and rejection from every caregiver or leader in his own life, just as the poor are rejected by society so they resort to begging. He feels that something drastic will have to happen in order for things to change, otherwise the misery of being devoured by society will be upon the poor “breed for ever,” as well as himself (Swift). Perhaps it was too late for this drastic change in Swift’s life. Perhaps his unresolved childhood complexes are too distant that they would have never been resolved.
One way that Swift tries to persuade the reader that his proposal is normal or ethical is through the fallacies of the scare tactic. Swift uses his proposal as an attack on the economic problems going on in Ireland. In the beginning swift begins to persuade the reader that his proposal is logical and normal. Do we agree on the fact that eating children is morally and economically wrong? He also states that his proposal would make the children “beneficial to the public” (444). Can we agree that Swift is not suggesting that the people of Ireland would really eat their children. More or
It is clear that he uses pathos as his most potent tool for persuasion. Be it a way to depict gruesome imagery, a way to supplement his call to action, or as an enhancement for both his ethos and logos arguments, his strategic use of pathos is what drove the letter’s meaning to the hearts of
In “Lifeboat Ethics,” Hardin does not want to share the resources with the impecunious because he sees it as a waste of resources. He sees the poor as a burden and he doesn’t believe that the less-fortunate will ever make a beneficial or valuable use of resources and offers no solutions to help to the poor. Swift has a different approach on the issue in ‘A Modest Proposal,” he believes that the poor can do better things with the resources than the rich can. He suggested two solutions to the British middle class either they pay the Irish for their babies and they cook and eat the infants to
...that the author is sarcastic about his own proposal, any kind of opposing view or counterargument is in reality the voice of reason and intelligence when compared with Swift’s proposal. The argument is in a way weak or flawed because of the sarcasm at hand. Yes, it is full of satire, but in the following argument Swift builds up his proposal only to diminish the value of his argument by blatantly expressing the sarcasm in this piece. This proposal is flawed throughout the text and is in no way a rational or logical solution to the problem as Swift claims it is. In conclusion, Swift’s proposal is a satire filled piece, which he delivers in a dry indifferent style. His arguments, rationally presented, support an irrational solution to the problem and he evokes pathos in his audience by using only logos in his proposal and that is the brilliance of his piece.
“If only there was a way to end world hunger.” Is that not a plea that has been the base creed of a legion of organizations determined to help the famished and impoverished? As Jonathon Swift has said in his Gulliver’s Travels, “Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and Pride and Hunger will ever be at variance” (2602). Swift criticizes this reality in Gulliver’s Travels just as he does in his essay, “A Modest Proposal”; however, unlike in Gulliver’s Travels, the speaker in the “Proposal” offers a not-so-modest solution to the issue of hunger in Ireland: cannibalism. The speaker in Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” develops a firm argument using Aristotle’s various modes of persuasion – logos, mostly, but ethos and pathos as well – to the fullest by utilizing convincing tone, specific diction, and frequent statistics that weave a certain irony to effectively criticize the faults of both the wealthy elite and the poverty-stricken Irish.