In her essay, “On Compassion”, Barbara Ascher uses ethos and references to Greek tragedy to demonstrate the purpose of her essay; that compassion can be learned by witnessing the adversity or poverty around you, and that we should not ignore the helpless, because they remind us of our own selves. Ascher also uses examples of current events related to the homeless to emphasize her perspective on compassion. She believes that compassion is something that is learned, not a character trait.
Ascher uses pathos to convey the purpose of her essay. Ascher suggested that living in a big city like Manhattan allows you to see more poverty and homelessness than places like Wyoming, and that even though a lot of people in the city want to escape that, those conditions allow them to start to empathize with the homeless.…