Pathos Introduction

This meme originating in 2008 was passed around Facebook yet again last week:

Obama

 

  1. What emotion(s) do you think this meme is designed to provoke?
  2. What aspects of this meme (the image and the accompanying text) provoke these emotions?
  3. Take a few minutes to read the history of this meme on Snopes Urban Legends site. Using that information, compose a new text to accompany the image that still evokes emotion but that is intended to give the (American) reader a sense of calmness, comfort, and security.

========================

Let’s look at another one. This is one’s from 2013: Glenn Beck  making a pathetic appeal that uses emotionally charged language as a build-up and then offers a shocking visual, which is a modern-day use of what Aristotle called enargeia (bringing to life before one’s eyes).

  1. What emotion(s) do you think this video is designed to provoke?
  2. What aspects of this video provoke these emotions?
  3. To get a sense of the ways in which Beck’s rhetoric is emotionally charged, spend a few minutes with this piece designed specifically to cool the emotions, especially points 6 and 7: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/29/9-questions-about-syria-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask/