Effective Use of Pathos
Ellen Goodman and Carol Tavris share styles in writing, audiences, and rhetorical appeals. Both authors write informally and direct their message towards listeners between the age of 30-45 years of age. Goodman and Tavris also use pathos to back up their essays.
In Countering the Culture of Sex, Goodman addresses teenage sex and the media. Sex is sold throughout the United States by the television and music. Goodman thinks is the media is going to continue to propagate this material to the youth of the nation, then there needs to be a complete view of sex and the consequences. The images teenagers see today are only positive images of sex. They do not put the bad facts: sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, and pregnancy, with all the good advertising sex has developed in their minds. Goodman stands for a movement towards correct portrayal of sex in the media.
In Groups We Shrink From Loner’s Heroics, Tavris describes the phenomenon of social loafing. Through two incidences, Tavris depicts a society where people in groups allow a murder or beating to take place without intervention. This lack of responsibility stems from the group individual’s belief that someone else is already taking care of the situation. Tavris feels strongly that people who merely stand and watch should also be considered in the wrong. She wants the public to unite and look out for each other’s best interests, to not fall into a diffusion of responsibility.
The writing styles in both essays are similar; they are informal. Tavris notes, “They behave badly because they aren’t paying attention, or they leave it to Harry, or they don’t want to rock the boat…” These modern day phrases make it easier for the reader to understand. These words take Tavris from the status of a Ph. D. in Sociological Psychology to an everyday person trying to make everyone understand her point. Goodman’s informal approach, “These messages that kids actually listen to ought to be piped into the hearing rooms where Congress is busy concocting a new welfare policy,” make it easier for her to connect with her audience. Welfare is an issue and an area of concern for many adults. The sarcastic, informal tone in Goodman’s words reflects the strength in her own belief and the belief she possess in the everyday citizen.
“Something happens to individuals when they collect in a group. They think and act differently than they would on their own. (17)” States Carol Tavris in her article, “In Groups We Shrink From Loner’s Heroics”. Tavris believes people who are in groups tend to act in a more sluggish manor than those alone. She states many examples of this theory in her article, including the story of Kitty Genovese which is stated in the first paragraph. Kitty was stabbed repeatedly and killed in front of her New York apartment. No one did anything to stop this heinous action from taking place. Within her essay she obtains rhetorical appeals to prove that her statements are plausible to the audience.
Trifles” is a play written in 1916 by Susan Glaspell. The play’s audience consists of young adults to those in their late 50’s. Mrs. Glaspell takes a serious matter of domestic violence and uses her platform as an author to raise awareness about the issue. In the play “Trifles” a neighbor went to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Wright only to find Mr. Wright dead in his bed. He had been strangled to death by a rope. The neighbor questioned Mrs. Wright about the matter and her response was odd and suspicious. Mrs. Wright was taken to jail while the home is being investigated for further evidence. Mrs. Glaspell’s play “Trifles” effectively achieves the goal in raising awareness on domestic violence by the evidence of the crime and through pathos.
Guns do belong in schools and prospective parents should be required to obtain a license before having kids. These are the dominant themes present in Jamie O'Meara's "Gun, Sex, and Education" and Janice Turner's "Should We Need a License to Be a Parent?" respectively. O'Meara argues that just like sex education arms the youth with knowledge, protecting them from irresponsible promiscuous behavior, gun education would serve the same purpose with respect to violence and guns. Similarly, Turner calls for new legislation but in an entirely different arena. She believes that in order to become parents, adults or non-adults for that matter, should meet a certain required standard and obtain a license in order to enter the most important profession of all: parenting. In order to develop these arguments, both writers utilize the general rhetorical strategies of comparison and argument. However, there is one key difference between the approaches taken to the development of the arguments. O'Meara's article has successfully employs ethical (ethos), emotional (pathos) and logical (logos) appeal whereas Turner's article takes a predominantly rational appeal (logos). Though both articles do an excellent job of conveying their points, all things considered, O'Meara's attempt at presenting a well balanced approach appealing to logic, emotion and ethics is more successful than Turner's attempt at presenting a solely logical argument.
Pepper Schwartz opens Why is Everyone Afraid of Sex? with "In spite of the visibility of sex in the media and popular culture, despite a widespread acceptance of a variety of sexual practices, Americans still hold a deep-rooted fear of sex." (252) Schwartz then goes on to explain the surprising, but obvious truth. American society portrays a sexual attitude, but is actually hiding a fear of the activity. Schwartz does a great job of showing both sides of this argument. She mentions how sex seems to no longer be a completely taboo thing within the media and society today. Within television, magazines, articles, movies, etc, sexual themes are all over the place. Another factor is that premarital sex is becoming more and more acceptable these
In “The Perils of Indifference” Elie Wiesel uses several techniques to get his point across. Three of them in the speech are Ethos, Repetition, and Pathos. He uses a combination of the three elements throughout the paragraphs of his speech to attract the readers. The combination of these elements help draw the reader’s emotions and interest towards his subject. He focuses on word choice that would pertain to his audience’s level of vocabulary.
...ers, Kim. Sexual Teens, Sexual Media: Investigating Media’s Influence on Adolescent Sexuality. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002.
Ogloff, J. R. (2006). Psychopathy/antisocial personality disorder conundrum. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, (40), 519-528.
Deborah Tolman author of “Dilemmas of Desire” dwells on uncovering a wealth of feelings about sexuality from teenage girls who are faced with a lot of struggles in developing sexual identity and detached from their sexuality. One of her main argument is centered on the juxtaposition of media representations of girls as highly sexualized objects. For instance, “the urban girl is viewed as the overly sexual young jezebel. Latinas are often eroticized as exotic, sexually alluring and available.” (Tolman, pg.170). I agree with this statement due to simple fact that we are living in a highly sexualized cultural milieu and evidence of sexualization is seen through mainstream culture. Images such as Sarah Bartman depict African American/ urban portrayal of sexual imagery formed socio-historical
“I have a dream that one day right here in Alabama little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” –Martin Luther King Jr. (Atkinson). Racism is believed to be a part of the past. In many circumstances it is, such as the desegregation of the army and schools. In light of this fact, tensions between whites and blacks have been increasingly seen in the recent shootings of unarmed black boys. This is determined in many different scenarios such as: George Zimmerman shooting unarmed Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old playing with a toy gun being shot by a city police officer, and one of the most recent and controversial, Michael Brown being shot down by a
Anti-Social Personality Disorder is a classified personality disorder in which a person, sometimes referred to as a “psychopath”, has a lack of empathy, an increased chance of acting violently towards others, and a complete disregard for authority and punishment. Prevalent features and symptoms include: shallow emotions, irresponsibility, mistrust of others, reckless thrill-seeking, disrespect for the law, prone to lash out with physical violence, harmful impulsiveness, arrogance, manipulative, greedy, lack of kindness or compassion, disrespect for others, and dishonesty (Psychology Today, n.d.). A main factor of this disorder is the inability to process, interpret, and display emotion, even fear. An example is that most criminals with this disorder respond drastically different to their sentencing than normal. They seem relaxed and unable to process it on an emotional level. They are also fully aware of what they are doing, and have no sense of distorted reality, or remorse which classifies them as sane people. They also have neurotransmitter deficiencies in the brain, such as reduced serotonin and dopamine (Freedman & Verdun-Jones, 2010). The overall population of people having this disorder is a small amount, about 3% and higher in prisons and abuse clinics which is around 70%. Also, because of their constant involvement in violence, most people diagnosed with this disorder die by violent means such as suicide and homicide (Internet Mental Health, n.d.).
The goal of this paper is to effectively explain the adverse affects of antisocial personality disorder. This paper will increase understanding on the psychological mindset of those who commit crimes and how it relates to their personality. I have selected two sources on the subject of antisocial personality disorders that will effectively explain an individual’s actions who suffer from this disorder. Finally we will discuss possible treatments for this disorder.
During hiring process, employers use a wide variety of tests to choose the best candidate for their company. These tests are used to eliminate candidates that are not fit for the company. The personality test, is one of many that is being used in many organizations as a means of making a hiring decision. It has been studied that personality traits predict success in job performance. Having the ability to judge the candidate before hiring can ultimately forecast how fit the employee is for the company. Personality tests uses conscientiousness, openness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotionally stable as predictors of job performance. Companies want to know what type of personality traits you have before hiring, for the reason that bad hiring
Before proceeding on what antisocial personality disorder is, along with its debatable biological causes, it is important to understand the criteria for a personality disorder. According to the manual used to diagnose psychological disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, describes personality disorders are ongoing mental illnesses that continue to dramatically affect an individuals’ life. The disorder involves feelings, i...
People are often blinded by the situation in which they are in, and by their personal motives which drive them to act. Humans, by nature, have faults and vices that are potentially harmful. It is the responsibility of society to anticipate harm, whether to oneself or to others. Once dangerous patterns and habits are recognized, it is imperative to anticipate and prevent injury from reoccurring. To allow any individual to be inflicted harm forces citizens to lose trust in the government, thus unraveling the fabric of society.... ...
“The media may be especially important for young people as they are developing their own sexual beliefs and patterns of behavior and as parents and schools remain reluctant to discuss sexual topics (p.26)”.