Definition of Pathos
Key Examples in Crime and Punishment
At the funeral dinner for her husband Semyen Marmeladov, his widowed wife Katerina Ivanovna—fatally afflicted with tuberculosis—wields pathos in defense of her stepdaughter Sonya, who has been falsely accused by Luzhin of stealing money from his room.
“Sonya! Sonya! I don’t believe them! You see I don’t believe them!” Katerina Ivanovna cried [...] “You still don’t know what a heart she has, what a girl she is! As if she would take anything! Why, she’d strip off her last dress and sell it, and go barefoot, and give everything to you if you needed it—that’s how she is! She got a yellow pass because my children were perishing from hunger, she sold herself for us!…Ah, husband, husband! Ah, my poor, dead husband! Do you see? Do you see? Here’s your memorial meal! Lord! But defend her!”