La Donna Beaty Analysis

In “What Makes a Serial Killer”, La Donna Beaty aims to provide an evidence regarding the most vital characteristics of a serial killer. Mainly, the information given in the article is based on eight different sources with the help of which the author supports her primary argument. There are four essential characteristics that the author distinguishes as being the most influential in terms of becoming a serial killer. Concretely, according to the presented theories, these characteristics include the impact of society, the general atmosphere within one 's family, the heavy use of alcohol and mental illnesses. Beaty 's essay is fairly an informative piece as suggesting what might form a serial killer, she does not say what she thinks may

What is more, the author uses pathos in order to persuade the audience on an emotional level, so that provide a high degree of emotional intensity. Beaty manages to capture the readers with a strong appeal to pathos, using alarming statistics and data. Concretely, she nearly scares the audience by stating that approximately 350 serial killers are currently at large in the USA. Also, according to Holmes and DeBurger, whose evidence Beaty successfully uses in her article, "between 3,500 and 5,000 people become victims of serial murder each year in the United States alone" (Beaty). Such approach of conveying the vital information to the audience is fairly useful as evokes different feelings which in fact urge to read more on the presented topic. That is because the given statistics is taken from the credible sources and that in turn, makes it appropriate enough within the provided context. Moreover, Beaty, in order to appeal to her readers, uses pathos while explaining a variety of emotional behaviors. In particular, the author introduces a number of killers, including John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and Jeffrey Dahmer. By doing this, she analyses their psychopathic tendencies developed from abusive families in which they have not received enough love and care. Also, the author mentions the failure of the mental health care system as one of the causes of the formation of such violent mental