Analysis Of Wendell Berry's Essay 'The Whole Horse'

Authors and speakers alike use some type of persuasion on their intended audience. They often try to make you agree with their argument before considering other factors. Persuasive writing often has a copious amount of logical fallacies, defined by the Perdue Online Writing Lab as “errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic”, despite that they tend to have success with sympathetic audiences. Wendell Berry’s essay “The Whole Horse” is an example. Berry is likely to persuade his conservationist audience because of his use of emotive language. The emotionally charged style of “The Whole Horse” is the strong point in persuading his conservationist audience. Berry mainly appeals chiefly to pathos (emotions) rather than logos (logic) or

The claim that things are “worse off now than when I started” causes an emotional stir in readers (122). He then compares himself to conservationist saying he is “like all other conservationist” in that way. Berry uses words like “battle” to describe the conflict between conservationist and industrialism to evoke emotion (122). He further appeals to emotions saying that because they have not quit they are not hopeless. His hope is to start a “revolt of local small producers and local consumers against the global industrialism of the corporation. (122)” Berry clearly tells readers he believes that such a revolt is possible. In fact, he claims the revolt is already in progress. As the economy grows, so do the “abuses” from industrial agriculture (123). He says the revolt is happening because an “intelligent” consumer should be able to see that it is becoming harder to hide such things (123). Using diction like abuse is more than likely to cause an outcry. Automatically people associate the word abuse with a bad thing. No one correlates abuse to a good thing. Even a skeptical reader will likely feel some type emotion towards the emotive language describing the wrongdoings of the industrial economy. Berry uses words to his convenience when detailing why the revolt is