Fringe Benefits Of Failure

In her speech, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” J.K. Rowling is examining the importance that failure and imagination has on someone’s life. Failure is discovered when you experience an extreme difficulty in your life and you can only grow from a failure. Rowling illustrates that everybody fails during some stage in their life, some more than others. But you have to choose whether or not to get back up and keep trying. Failure can be a good thing and there are benefits to failure. The power of imagination gives us life works. Rowling uses basic appeals to get her point across to the reader or audience: ethos, the appeal to character and credibility; pathos, the appeal to emotions; and logos, the appeal to …show more content…
Ethos is the appeal to character and credibility. Throughout the speech, she explains her story with many experiences she had with failure. The detail that she uses makes her credible and resourceful. Rowling uses the appeal of ethos by making a reference to Harry Potter. She says The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion, (Rowling) knowing that her audience will be able to relate and understand the things that she is saying in her speech. Rowling explains how much of an honor it is for her to be there and to be chosen to give this speech because of her past accomplishment, recognizing her character. She also builds a common ground with the graduates when saying she had “weeks of fear and nausea” because her audience may be feeling the same way when thinking about their future after …show more content…
By appealing to emotions, the author of the speech can help direct the feelings a reader might have towards a specific statement. One of her examples goes back to when she worked for a company whose main focus was on research of African human rights. She was able to experience many horrible things while she obtained this job, due to the harsh things the African’s experienced. Rowling describes the horror and pain the victim felt: I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child