Use of Pathos and Logos in "The Damned Human Race"

Mark Twain's "Damned Human Race," uses a combination of pathos and logos in his article, but within his article Twain had some misconceptions with his arguments. Mark Twain essay, consisted of personality and outlooks between animals and mankind by comparing them to each other.. Throughout the essay he took a variety of animals, and study their traits and how they survive and then compared them to longevity of mankind. Twain came to the conclusion that Descent of Man came from the Higher Animal (Twain), he no longer believe in Darwinian theory which concluded that Ascent of Man came from the Lower Animals.

Mark Twain attempts to grab the attention of the readers by using pathos and logos in his work, Twain main purpose is to generally entertain the audience by proving his point while having fallacies within his own writing.

Twain used pathos in his written, hunting was used as a example in which Twain tried to connect people with hunting.

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By connecting those with the same interest, he was able to gain the attention of the reader because they could relate to his findings. Authors use pathos to invoke sympathy from an audience; to make the audience feel what the author wants them to feel ("Examples of Ethos, Logos and Pathos:). The first occurrence of Twain using pathos, is when he relates to hunting. "In the course of my reading I had come across a case where, many years ago, some hunters on our Great Plains organized a buffalo hunt for the entertainment of an English earl" (Twain).

Pathos was used to tie this to people who like hunting as a sport or people consider themselves hunters. The second occurrence of Twain using pathos to relate to the reader is when he refers to money. Twain wrote, "I was aware that many men who have accumulated more millions of money than they can ever use have shown a rabid hunger for more, and have not scrupled to cheat the ignorant and the helpless out of their poor servings in order to partially appease that appetite" (Twain). Twain usages of pathos was intended to draw certain readers to his article, he used it very effectively by giving good examples throughout his article.

Along with pathos, Twain used logos to gain the reader's attention in his article to draw the reader closer. Logo is when an author uses facts and statistics, historical and literal analogies, and citing certain authorities on a subject ("Examples of Ethos, Logos and Pathos:). In his article, he uses his own inquisition and analysis to prove his certainty. Twain wrote, "Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and dog to be friends. I put them in a cage"(Twain). Another example of pathos used by Twain is when he describe the experiment between anacondas and some calves. The anacondas was satisfied with only one calve and did not harm the other ones. The author used his own research to entertain his readers by comparing mankind with a anaconda. He persuasively was able to gain attention from other readers by using pathos in his writing.

"The Damned Human Race," by Mark Twain, was very compelling but some of his fact were untruthful. Within Twain writing he had some fallacies, which weakens and undermine his argument as a author. Twain voice his feeling in his article, instead of giving reasonable data or facts to prove a point. Fallacies were used in the writing, it did not overwhelmed what the author was trying to prove to the reader. The information was well presented to the reader without any trouble understanding it.

Mark Twain's article, "The Damned Human Race" was well written and keep the reader's engaged by using pathos and logos. By having the author use pathos in his article, the audience was able to bond with this article because they could relate to it in some type of way. Also, by having logos within his writing allowed him to gain the attention of mature readers by using intelligence arguments. Although, Twain had scattering cases of fallacies in his article, it did not any negative impact on the article. Mark Twain's article was very enjoyable and well drafted, by being able to get his point across without losing the interest of the reader.

Work Cited

"Examples of Ethos, Logos and Pathos:." Ethos, Pathos Logos Explanation and Examples. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2014. . Twain, Mark."The Damned Human Race." Moodyap.pbworks.com.n.d.Web. 23 Jan 2014.