Have you ever tried to protest a decision you saw as unfair? Ever tried to stick it to the man? You aren’t the only one. English poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, did exactly that when she wrote an unmailed letter to Emperor Napoleon III, against his discussion to exile French writer Victor Hugo, after his writing ridiculing the government. Elizabeth Barrett Browning is able to use rhetorical devices in her letter, such as logos, pathos, and ethos. Any reader could see how Mrs. Browning uses ethos to justify her writing, logos to suggest consequences, and pathos to “butter up” her emperor.
To begin with, Elizabeth Barrett Browning also uses logos to suggest outcome to Emperor Napoleon. Browning mentions his status and how he is viewed several times throughout his letter, almost reminding him of his position of power. Browning mentions while exiling Victor Hugo to Jersey that the people of France would see him as weak, or fragile seeing that he sent a poet away for his work. While if he were to be generous and forgive Victor, and let him continue to live in France he would be praised and seen to be strong and generous leader being able to forgive a man who he disagrees with, let alone one who is accused
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Browning says, “[A]s a woman to have addressed them through the mediation of the tender-hearted Empress Eugenie, - but, a wife myself, I felt it would be harder for her majesty to pardon an offense against the Emperor Napoleon,” (line 61-65) she wrote this so justify even though she should have written to her majesty Empress Eugenie she decided this was important enough to confront Napoleon himself. Bowning also uses the facts that not only she is a poet herself but the wife of a poet, and as such she is representing Mr. Hugo and supporting a fellow writer from being exiled for his work. Browning tries to persuade Napoleon through her urgency and