Pathos In An Academy For Women By Daniel Defoe

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In "An Academy for Women" written by Daniel Defoe Pathos and Logos are both used frequently to help his argument of women needing an equal opportunity for education to be relayed. By using emotional extravagant words Defoe was able to relate to many female oriented circumstances; not only this but he was also able to impact a needed self-reflection centered in the direction of many males. As his work is analyzed more closely it will be discovered that Logos is also being used, by logically appealing to the masses and emotionally appealing to the readers his argument was able to be successfully transmitted. First, to support his argument he opens with Pathos as his first rhetorical device. Defoe states in inhumane to deny such a majority of the population education. ?I have often thought of it as one of the most barbarous customs in the world, considering us as a civilized and a Christian country, that we deny the advantages of learning to women. "(Academy for Women, Defoe p. 578) By using "barbarous" and "we deny the advantages of learning to women" Defoe was able to lure the reader in emotionally. Second, Defoe uses Pathos to demonstrate how education is a beautiful thing when received. "And it is the sordidest piece of folly and ingratitude in the world to withhold from the sex the due luster which the advantages of education gives the natural beauty of their minds." (Academy for Women, Defoe p. 580) Third, Daniel Defoe points a result of women being neglected from