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Oxymorons
Definition of Pathos
Pathos, along with logos and ethos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective speaking or writing). Pathos is an argument that appeals to... read full definition
Pathos, along with logos and ethos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective speaking or writing). Pathos is... read full definition
Pathos, along with logos and ethos, is one of the three "modes of persuasion" in rhetoric (the art of effective... read full definition
Key Examples in The Odyssey
Book 1
Explanation and Analysis:
At the beginning of The Odyssey, Athena, who favors Odysseus, uses pathos when interceding on his behalf at a council of the gods. Addressing her father, Zeus, and conceding that another mortal, Aegisthus, "goes down to a death he earned in full," she states:
Father, son of Cronus, our high and mighty king,
surely he goes down to a death he earned in full!
Let them all die so, all who do such things.
But my heart breaks for Odysseus,
that seasoned veteran cursed by fate so long —
far from his loved ones still, he suffers torments [...]
Odysseus longs to die . . .
Olympian Zeus, have you no care for him in your lofty heart?
Did he never win your favor with sacrifices
burned beside the ships on the broad plain of Troy?
Why, Zeus, why so dead set against Odysseus?
Related Themes:
Book 2
Explanation and Analysis—Good Calm Sense:
When Antinous, leader of the suitors, complains about Penelope's tricks and argues that Telemachus should send her back to her father's home so that he might select a husband on her behalf, Telemachus uses both logos and pathos in his argument that it would be unjust to send his own mother away:
Unlock with LitCharts A+But with calm good sense Telemachus replied:
“Antinous, how can I drive my mother from our house
against her will, the one who bore me, reared me too? [...]
Oh what I would suffer from her father —
and some dark god would hurt me even more
when mother, leaving her own house behind,
calls down her withering Furies on my head,
and our people’s cries of shame would hound my heels.
I will never issue that ultimatum to my mother.
And you, if you have any shame in your own hearts,
you must leave my palace!
Related Themes:
Book 11
Explanation and Analysis—Like a Shadow:
In a speech saturated with pathos, Odysseus recounts meeting his deceased mother, Anticleia, in the afterlife. Earlier, Odysseus saw his mother's shade in Hades but made the difficult decision to push her away in order to closely follow Circe's instructions. After he receives a prophecy and warning from Tiresias, however, Odysseus searches for his mother, who explains the sad circumstances of her death:
Unlock with LitCharts A+'No, it was my longing for you, my shining Odysseus —
you and your quickness, you and your gentle ways —
that tore away my life that had been sweet.’
And I, my mind in turmoil, how I longed
to embrace my mother’s spirit, dead as she was!
Three times I rushed toward her, desperate to hold her,
three times she fluttered through my fingers, sifting away
like a shadow, dissolving like a dream.
Related Themes:
Book 12
Explanation and Analysis—Scylla:
In an epic simile, the poem compares the monstrous Scylla to an "angler," or a person who fishes with a line and a hook:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Just as an angler poised on a jutting rock
flings his treacherous bait in the offshore swell,
whips his long rod —hook sheathed in an oxhorn lure —
and whisks up little fish he flips on the beach-break,
writhing, gasping out their lives . . . so now they writhed, [...]
screaming out, flinging their arms toward me,
lost in that mortal struggle . . .
Of all the pitiful things I’ve had to witness,
suffering, searching out the pathways of the sea,
this wrenched my heart the most.
Related Themes:
