Neil Haiman's Speech To Make Good Art, By Neil Gaiman

For example, Wallace says, “But then you remember there's no food at home — you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job — and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket.” (Wallace). The purpose of using this storyline is because it allows the audience to be able to relate to what the author talks about. This imaginary scenario is one that not only the graduates can relate to, it’s also something that the parents and/or other older attenders can speak from. Using examples such as these is significant to the authors use of pathos also because it can help the author to develop an emotional connection with their audience. Another example would be when he touches on the subject of suicide. “And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger” (Wallace). Suicide is clearly an emotional and depressing subject and having this in his speech helps readers to understand the unhappiness that people go through before actually committing it. The example of suicide is noteworthy because even if people in that audience may have not had to experience it or dealt with it, it’s still an important matter and to the American society, it continues to be something that more than a majority take to

Likewise, another appeal used by Sherman is pathos. Pathos, or argument by emotion is most prevailing in the text due to the frequent theme of obstacles presented to the author, and how those struggles evict emotion from the audience. First, Sherman describes his father in a way that excites strong emotion, and possible empathy. “My father loved books, and since I loved my father with an aching devotion, I decided to love books as well” (Sherman 1). In general love is a strong word, adding to sentiment, Sherman then uses the phrase “aching devotion”. When phrased together not only do these words bear positive feelings and connotations, but also gives the reader something to empathize with. Considering Sherman decided to love books because his father did too, it is made clear that he looks up to his elder. Idolizing parents, a common opinion, gives the audience another point to relate to. Furthermore, Sherman switches up his point of view in compliance of a pathos strategy. Throughout the entire text, the author remains

By using pathos, he creates an appeal to the reader from many different aspects. Fear is one emotion he tries to get at. When he

The next element in the rhetorical situation is pathos. Pathos is defined as connecting the author and the reader using emotion. Pathos is more reader dependent than the other elements. Pathos helps the writer know to know their audience and who they are intending to write for. Connecting to the audience using pathos is a strong way to get the support of the reader. The audience needs to be moved by what they’re reading. Without pathos, the writer won’t be able to properly connect to their audience.

Logos is used for logical reasons to connect to the readers, its opening the citizens eyes to

Pathos appeals to the reader’s emotions by using emotional stories and imagery. Pathos strategies are often used to grab and hold the reader’s attention. Emotional or personal stories give the reader an opportunity to emotionally relate to the story, and allows them to be emotionally connected. An emotionally connected reader is more interested in the story that a reader who is not emotionally connected.

First let’s talk about how Sherman Alexie uses pathos to appeal to the reader’s emotions. In his writing when he is using this technique he says, “I read anything that had words and paragraphs. I read with equal parts joy and desperation. I loved those books, but I also knew that love had only one purpose. I was trying to save my life.” (Alexie). This quote is successful because his word choice is helping to make the reader feel emotionally attached to the reasoning behind why he is doing what he is doing. Also, he says towards the end of his writing, “I refused to fail. I was smart. I was arrogant. I was lucky.” (Alexie) He does a good job with his word choice in these short sentences. It makes the reader engaged in the writing because he is being assertive, and he knows what he wants. Which what he wants is the reader to understand his point that something needed to be done and he was going to be the one to do it. Both of these quotes that I have pulled from his text reaches the readers on an emotional level because he makes it seem that knowing how to read saved his life and now that he knows how to read and

Then, I will discuss logos and how it is used in my speech. This speech is persuasive and logical because everyone goes through tough times especially his father. Rocky Jr. was given this speech because he was going through hard times at work and life in general. His mother died years back, he was struggling at work, and he was also facing hate from his father’s decisions. At this point, he felt hopeless. He was letting everything that was happening in the world bring him down and make him lose faith in himself. The speech was meant to lift his spirits and help him gain his faith and confidence back. Rocky hated seeing his son struggle in life, which no father likes seeing their child struggle.

He also includes a lot of emotional parts throughout the speech this is effective as it may get an emotional response from the audience this happens when he says “Your loved ones were daring and brave” and “It is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen” this is a good use of pathos as it does connect to the emotional feelings of the viewer.

Gorgias goes on to explain three different occupations that use Logos to gain acceptance of opinions. Ultimately, Gorgias finishes comparing Logos to the effects of a drug (Freeman).

The stage is set, the lights are dimmed, and the spotlight shines down upon former pro wrestler Mike Kinney. Throughout Kinney’s speech, he uses pathos to help appeal to the audience's emotions and persuade them to accept and approve of his ideas. The strongest and most effective use of pathos happens towards the middle of Kinney’s speech. “Not long after I started wrestling, my dad unexpectedly passed away. And as you can imagine, especially as a teenage boy, it destroyed me”(3:39). Kinney uses a very strong emotional appeal when he tells the audience that his dad has passed away at a very young age. This is such an effective appeal because anyone who has lost someone important in their life knows how hard it can be. If the speaker himself has lost someone important to him, not only does this make the audience sad, they

Chapman uses pathos to appeal to the readers’ fear of uncertainty in the future in order to make them aware that not enough is being done to benefit the next generation. By drawing attention to the readers’ feelings, Chapman is able to make the readers more aware of their views and enables them to create opinions on his writings and as a result, causes them to

Nicholas Carr addresses and adapts to his audience by effectively using pathos, a rhetorical appeal. The author captures his audience by appealing to their emotions. For example, Carr explains on page five,

First, Brady applies logos as an attempt to utilize arguments and reasoning to make her audience recognize what she is writing. She convinces her audience that women are expected to do too much. Specifically, she explains a lot of things a wife should do from the beginning to the end of the essay;

Famous actors, musicians, politicians, artists and authors are often called upon to deliver commencement addresses at prestigious places of higher learning. It doesn't take Nobel-Prize-winning social scientists or psychologists, or speech professors to predict what these elite guest speakers will say on such occasions such as these. The speaker will tell the graduating class to aim high, never give up, make the most of opportunities, and do as our forbearers did: pull yourselves up by the bootstraps. But when Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks showed up at Vassar College to present the commencement address, his presentation avoided those clichés and platitudes. Hanks was refreshing original and yet remarkably pragmatic. This paper critiques Hanks' themes, examines his rhetorical techniques, and editorially analyzes his purpose.