The Bell Jar

by Sylvia Plath

The Bell Jar: Logos 1 key example

Definition of Logos

Logos, along with ethos and pathos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective speaking or writing). Logos is an argument that appeals to... read full definition
Logos, along with ethos and pathos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective speaking or writing). Logos is... read full definition
Logos, along with ethos and pathos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective... read full definition
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Dust:

In an imagined argument with Buddy, whom she had been dating prior to going to New York, Esther uses both allusion and logos in order to defend poetry from Buddy’s criticism: 

I imagined Buddy saying, “Do you know what a poem is, Esther?” “No, what?” I would say. “A piece of dust.” Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, “So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you’re curing. They’re dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.” And of course Buddy wouldn’t have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust [...]