Analysis Of Daniel James Brown's The Boys In The Boat

“All were merged into one smoothly working machine; they were, in fact, a poem of motion, a symphony of swinging blades”, this quote stated by Daniel James Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. This inspiring biography is about the enthralling story behind US gold medal winner Joe Rantz. The book describes in detail the tremendous amount of work he and his fellow teammates at Washington University accomplished to take bring home the much coveted gold medal, at a time of great political strife throughout the world. In this enthralling book, Daniel Brown writes about the harsh life of Joe Rantz, where he faced abandonment by his family. The book is set during the Great Depression and during Hitler’s genocide of Non-Aryans. Through the use of pathos that is evidence of emotional
The use of pathos is visible throughout the novel in the emotional connections for instance between Joe Rantz and his college sweetheart Joyce Simdars. This can be observed in chapter 1 “Joe understood cold reality… one down on Yesler Way” (Brown NA). The author’s purpose here is to show that Joe’s future depended on this one event on whether his hopes and dreams would ever come to fruition at a time of great economic despair. The purpose is also to convey extreme emotions of distress and hope at the same time in Joe that propelled him into getting on the freshmen team that led towards his ultimate goal of Olympic victory. Later in the text after winning the Olympic Gold medal, ethos is evident in a climatic scene during the procession held in the team's honor “The train ride home was jubilant… turn golden” (Brown NA). The author's purpose in this scene is to convey a feeling of achievement to the reader and to create a pinnacle point in the book especially for the team and Joe Rantz