Esfanani Smith Ethos

People may think they are happy in life where they stand now, but what is it that is making that one person happy. Is it their style of living, the money they have, or even just being able to satisfy their needs? In the essay, “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy” the author Emily Esfanani Smith highlights ethos, logos, and pathos to show what makes one happy. The first rhetorical device that was used was ethos. For example one way that the author used this device was by using a story in the beginning of her essay. The story she used was about Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist, that had experienced the horrific concentration camps, and Smith compared “the values of suffering” (Smith, 2013, para.5) with “pursuit of individual happiness” (Smith, 2013, para.5). She was trying to get to the point where the people in those concentration camps did not think about themselves and people in our country just worry about our own needs. By Emily using Viktor’s experience she tries getting people to see what other people think about instead of our happiness. Then after talking about Viktor, …show more content…
Smith was engaging the readings by talking about real life again but with making the reader acknowledge the “stress levels” “spending patterns” and “having children”(Smith, 2013, para. 7), because most people that will read Smith’s essay will be able to relate to all of these things that go on. She then goes on to further the pathos device by using the psychologist, with what they said to believe there are two ways life may lead, a happy life or meaningful life, the difference between the two that the psychologist say is that the happy life is associated with being a “taker” and meaningful life is associated with being a “giver” (Smith, 2013). Right here she makes readers think whether she is right with what she is saying. The readers can start to think to themselves, “Do I live a meaningful life or happy