Of Word Repetition, Parentheses, and Too Much Pathos

As you can probably guess by the title of this blog post, I will be talking about rhetoric. More specifically I will be talking about the three main tools used in the art of persuasion: pathos, logos, and ethos. Even more specifically (I should not even need to clarify this) I will be talking about pathos, and not just any argument using pathos, the use of pathos in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. Now, I understand that as a memoir about slavery published when slavery was still legal this book needs to sell the idea that slavery is brutal, cruel, wrong, etc. I also understand that the best way to appeal about such a topic is via pathos: what better way to go than making your reader’s hearts shrivel at the thought of your life and thus want to prevent anyone from living such terrible things again? Be that as I may, I still believed pathos is as overused as an argumentative tool in chapters three and four of the book as it has been overused as a word so far in this post.

Let’s discuss the topic of these two chapters. It can be described in many ways but one word that encompasses it all is: punishment. Chapter three and four in this memoir talk about the varied punishments slaves received, the reasons these punishments were dealt, what their masters used as punishment, and how this punishment at times ended in death. Unfair punishment is a sore subject that appeals to pathos all by itself. Even before Douglass starts making his points about the brutality of slavery, the main idea of these two chapters hits the heart directly. We have all felt unfair punishment before (maybe just witnessed it if you have been lucky or have no siblings) and it immediately makes you feel bad for the person who got dealt the short end of the stick. Obviously, the slaves got this end of the stick, to say the very least, all the time and the unfairness of it all is frustrating, annoying, and infuriating enough to make the reader feel sympathetic. Huzzah: pathos.

Further into his appeal to pathos is Douglass’s word choice throughout these two chapters. Especially during chapter four, the author throws around descriptions such as “horrid crime”, “bloody deeds”, “horrid murder”, “thrill of horror”, and “brother’s blood” in an extremely obvious intent to appeal to his reader’s hearts. Let’s ignore the fact that “brother’s blood” is used completely falsely (I’m pretty obstinate in my belief that none of the slaves considered their white owners kin in any shape or form and thus this term was just put in there by Douglass to make himself seem like the bigger person) and move on to the rest of the descriptions. Personally, I believe the use of “horrid” or any variation of it, just one time was more than enough to describe the large variety of monstrosities in these two chapters. This all goes back to the fact that Douglass was trying to sell an idea that slavery was bad, maybe he figured that by repeating certain words enough he might get the readers to think them constantly throughout the rest of the story. In assuming that this would work, he would be absolutely correct (who kills someone for not waking up to a baby’s cries???).

All in all, the constant repetition of harsh descriptive words, the topic of these two chapters, and the different examples given in the book were all set up as a perfect ladder to pathos. Starting with the relatively small things like a whipping for getting some tar on your body and then moving up to murders over crying children, Douglass set up a trap in which sympathy keeps getting larger and larger as the horrid events continue to repeat themselves with only some variations. Pathos is extremely overused in these two chapters, this is true, but it is also true that Douglass was very cunning when he decided to swoop for the emotional kill so early in the story. From now on, my view towards slaves will be sympathetic, and my hatred for the masters (let’s not talk about the fact that the use of the word master instead of owner, or slaveholder is an appeal to pathos as well. I mean, poor slave forced to call this monster slaveholder his master) is set in stone. Pathos in these two chapters of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, I have concluded, is extremely overused in the perfect way.