David Foster Wallace and Herman Melville use word choice to establish their ethos as they demonstrate pictures of disorder, while law is not present. “This is Water,” by David Foster Wallace was a commencement speech given by Wallace at Kenyon College on May 21, 2005. It later became an essay that was first published in a book by “Little Brown and Company” in 2009. “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,” is a short story written by Herman Melville, that was first published in 1853. The argumentative appeals, ethos, logos, and pathos are all effective in making points about law and disorder. The authors choose these particular argumentative strategies to get the main point and purpose out to the reader. However, when it comes
…show more content…
He uses them as a persuasive technique. Wallace presents ethos as the most important argumentative strategy. It is presented with the use of blunt language and confidence. Wallace has confidence in the subject matter that he is talking about. He gains your trust when he talks deeply about serious matters. He uses pathos when he talks about death and suicide. Wallace states, “It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.” Pathos is represented in this line because after reading that you feel emotion toward it, you sit back and have emotions of sadness and sorrow. This fact, even if it is sad, is true. This sentence also affects you later on when you find about Wallace’s suicide shortly after he gave this speech. Logos is prominent in this speech by the use of persuasion. Melville presents to you how to think. He tells you that he knows exactly how you think. He persuades you and shows you how much happier you would be if you followed his way of “teaching you how to …show more content…
He provides scenarios of times that our life seems crazy and out of order. It allows us to relate and picture ourselves in these situations. He talks about the mundane day to day activities that we do not even realize we participate in. He tries to teach us to look at these mundane activities from a different perspective, from a more positive and compassionate prospective. We have to partake in them, so why not make the best of them, and we never know it could be worse. You never know the struggle that others go through just to perform the same tasks that you do. It may be more difficult for them to perform, so we should do them without
He uses them as a persuasive technique. Wallace presents ethos as the most important argumentative strategy. It is presented with the use of blunt language and confidence. Wallace has confidence in the subject matter that he is talking about. He gains your trust when he talks deeply about serious matters. He uses pathos when he talks about death and suicide. Wallace states, “It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in the head. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.” Pathos is represented in this line because after reading that you feel emotion toward it, you sit back and have emotions of sadness and sorrow. This fact, even if it is sad, is true. This sentence also affects you later on when you find about Wallace’s suicide shortly after he gave this speech. Logos is prominent in this speech by the use of persuasion. Melville presents to you how to think. He tells you that he knows exactly how you think. He persuades you and shows you how much happier you would be if you followed his way of “teaching you how to …show more content…
He provides scenarios of times that our life seems crazy and out of order. It allows us to relate and picture ourselves in these situations. He talks about the mundane day to day activities that we do not even realize we participate in. He tries to teach us to look at these mundane activities from a different perspective, from a more positive and compassionate prospective. We have to partake in them, so why not make the best of them, and we never know it could be worse. You never know the struggle that others go through just to perform the same tasks that you do. It may be more difficult for them to perform, so we should do them without