Ethos Pathos Logos

We are a nation of repetition. A nation where one can easily study our history to view a glimpse of our future. But we choose to ignore the facts, which are directly in front of us and repeat our mistakes with the result being terrible consequences. But we refuse to acknowledge the truth that continually stares our nation in the face. As a result, the author is comparing the reason for obesity in nineteenth century and the twenty-first century; he does this in order to illuminate the link between the two. We will also view how the writer implemented ethos, pathos, and logos to strengthen his argument, and finally was his argument successful and how he could improve it. Immediately, he discusses the alcohol epidemic of the nineteenth century.

Now in the twenty-first century corn is turned into almost anything, with the most common item being corn-syrup, which is a key ingredient in all of our sweets. This is the author’s most pressing issue, that this surplus of corn created obesity in the nineteenth century and continues to do it even today. Even with this knowledge and obesity increasing we refuse to alter our methods in order to produce a better future.

At this time, we understand how important using logos, ethos, and pathos is to an essay. In order to create the best persuasive essay possible, one must use all three of these. There are two examples of each within this essay. Ethos was greatly used, which is the ethical appeal of a writer. Not much is known of the writer, rather he uses the credibility of his sources to show his argument is valid. This first comes when he discusses W.J. Rorabaugh and it reads, "As the historian W.J. Rorabaugh tells the story in The Alcoholic Republic, we drank the hard stuff at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, before work and after and very often during." Although we do not know the author through the writing, by using reliable resources such as a historian he fashions credibility. The next was when he mentions the thought process of several of our founding fathers which stated, "Several of the Founding Fathers-including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams-denounced the excesses of 'the Alcoholic Republic,' inaguarating an American quarrel over drinking that would culminate a century later in Prohibition." This not only gives a historian's opinion about it, but the thoughts of some of the men who risked their lives to build our countries. Next is logos, and this translates to the soundness of the argument. The first example is when he makes the comparison between the Alcoholic republic and the obesity today when he says, "The parallels of the Alcoholic republic of two hundred years ago are hard to miss." He is connecting the facts of the past