Wells is able to appeal to logos(shared logic,values) by appealing to her readers ability to think socially and that they are smarter and more educated to know better than the current socially accepted behavior.
Wells uses examples that aren't exaggerations yet makes a mockery of the treatment of colored people. Wells describes, "This is the work of the "unwritten law" about which so much is said, and in whose behest butchery is made a pastime and national savagery condoned"(Wells-Barnett 1). She speaks of lynching as a pastime as if its a hobby.
Wells then continues saying, "The sentiment of the country has been appealed to, in describing the isolated condition of white families in thickly populated negro districts; and the charge is made that these homes are in as great danger as if they were surrounded by wild beasts (Wells-Barnett 2). She referes in sarcasm to the black families surrounding the white families as wild beasts.
From both of these sarcastic remarks from Wells she appeals to logos because the individual can see the outrageousness and exaggeration of the situation and current state of attitude toward the negro. She asks the reader to have common logic and values of how to treat people to know better than every single negro being a "wild beast".
This is an interesting way to think about it. I never realized when I was reading the sarcasm, but I can see where it comes from. I thought it was very interesting how when she would talk about the "wild beast" there would be a description of lynchings around it that made the lynchers sound like these veritable wild beasts who tear and rip flesh and keep trophies.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the fact that she firsts talks about how lynching was used in the far West a hundred years before, but it was replaced by common law as civilized society reached that land. As the article goes on it seems like she is calling these lynchers backwards and more like savages with no laws. She also kind of spits in America's face by saying they are basically going backwards and how can we call ourselves a great country if we can not even protect our citizens.
Ryan, I'm not sure I understand the appeal to logos in her remarks, and so here is where I'll ask you to draw a bit more carefully (and in some depth) on Killingsworth's discussion of the appeal, since it is really his idea that we are taking up here. Or, if you want to rely on more Aristotelian notions of logos from Killingsworth's article, then at least show us that definition in interplay with these passages from Wells-Barnett's text.
ReplyDeleteI think you have pointed out something quite valuable in the ironic distancing of Wells-Barnett's language -- it really is ironic, isn't it? I imagine she assumed her reader would understand themselves (or someone) as the target of her irony. Also, the appeals (logos, pathos, ethos, etc.) aren't necessarily discrete entities -- that is, they do not necessarily function discretely from one another. Really, they are more like different dimensions of the same appeal.
So, logos doesn't function completely separately from ethos or pathos, but I think we do want to pay close attention to the ways that Killingsworth defines them differently from one another. In this instance, it seems like the properties of logos appeals we should be most concerend with are those that "involv[e] references to the world shared by the author and the audience" (Killingsworth, "Rhetorical Situations" 26). So, here, the irony (or sarcasm) is actually doing the opposite -- it is targeting and ridiculing those supposedly shared values, and most likely appealing to their emotions or the way they view themselves, what Killingsworth would call "pathos" (26).
To build this claim one further step, you'll notice that I just quoted from Aristotle's theory, as Killingsworth explained it. Killingsworth actually reconstructs each appeal as an interaction, and so his version of "pathos" becomes "the position of the audience" (27). His version of "logos" becomes "the position of value ... that defines (or re-established) the relationship, the common ground, of the other two positions" (28).
In this case, it seems like the example you noted in your own post is closer to Killingsworth's "position of audience." Does that make sense?
-Prof. Graban