Flores 1

Allan Flores
Dr. Werner
College Comp 102
10 February 2016
Pathos
Evoking an audience's emotions in order to use them as a means of persuasion. This was
said by R. Green, S. Cushman & C. Cavanagh in, The Princeton encyclopedia of poetry and
poetics. Pathos is use almost everywhere in the world to day when it comes to the modern
world. You can see Pathos on your TV, the internet even on the ride home from work you will
see something that grabs your attention solely based off of your feelings of it. The most
conclusive thing about this is that the human being cant control how they fell about something if
the emotions are pressed upon them. For example; A video of a group of homeless children
appear on the TV and the one adult in the picture is asking you to donate some money for these
homeless children so they can eat everyday. The video is going to use your emotions in order for
you to donate money to the children.
Pathos is used in so many different types of ways that most people dont even know that
it is being used. It has become such a popular thing for people and media to do that its something
that has just made its way into society without even knowing. In modern day, the importance of
pathos as a means of persuasionor as it is commonly referred to today, audience appeal.
(Cushman 18) It is used in almost every single show and movie that comes out, any type of
clothing that needs the common peoples liking. Emotion is used to keep people and things
popular amongst people so that the things that are using Pathos have more of a positive attitude
upon itself.

Flores 2
Society nowadays makes decisions solely based off of right and wrong and how they feel
towards something. Everything that is done has had some thought put into it, whether it was on
how others and themselves would react to their decisions or what outcomes could happen from
making that choice. Pathos already has an influence on people even without them knowing about
it. I would consider Pathos to be more of a natural thing to come about because all humans have
emotion which displays that it can be used against or for making decisions. That is something
people have been doing to others since people first learned how to communicate with one
another.