Frederick Douglass Pursuasive Techniques: Ethos, Pathos and Logos

Persuading the People In today’s schools, children grow up knowing about the wonderful writings of famous authors, such as William Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and Jane Austen. These authors were phenomenal story tellers, but were not the only great writers of the past. These writers were popular for many different reasons, but one trait that they all shared was their ability to truly make the reader feel how they felt and believe what they believed. This selective group of authors accomplished this by using a variety of persuasive techniques, including what Aristotle called “pathos,” “logos” and “ethos.” Many writers of the past used these same techniques to create very powerful arguments, but never became well known. This could be due to the heavy racism shown worldwide for at least the last five centuries. William Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and Jane Austen were all white and British, which were considered top of the “food chain.” However, a few writers of less desirable races did become popular, for example, Frederick Douglass. He was an African American slave, born and whipped in America. Douglass gained freedom in his early adult years and with his little education, wrote the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass used logical, emotional, and ethical appeals in his personal narrative to create a very effective argument against slavery. Since Frederick Douglass was unable to support his argument with data and research, his logical appeals were often from common knowledge. It is common knowledge that the bond of mother and child begins even before birth and is very essential for growth until the end of the toddler years. Douglass described the slave owners separating children from their mothers before they even reached the end of their first year. As for why, he said, “I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt destroy the natural affection of

Cited: Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Dover Publications,     1995. Print.