Use Of Rhetorical Appeals In Antigone

An important skill that all writers must master is the ability to use the rhetorical appeals of Aristotle to their advantage for seeing that Aristotle’s appeals is the key to winning any argument. Aristotle’s rhetorical appeals are made up of the persuasive power of logics and reasoning (logos), the emotional persuasive power of emotions (pathos), and the persuasive power of one’s character and credibility (ethos). A work of writing effectively using these appeals can be found in Antigone by Sophocles, scene 3, lines 55-94 also known as Haimon’s speech. In his speech the young prince, Haimon used a combination of ethos, pathos, and logos in an attempt to persuade his dad, Creon to pardon his wrongly convicted fiancée. Although all of Haimon’s

“I cannot say…that you have reasoned badly” (Sophocles 793). In this Haimon attempts an appeal to his father’s emotional side by stating he would never claim his father was at fault. Alone this statement would get Haimon nowhere considering it offers nothing to reach Haimon’s objective of persuading his father to admit he was mistaken. Yet when paired with logos, Creon heard the logic he was too arrogant to hear. “Yet there are other men who can reason too…” (Sophocles 793) This is just one of the numerous instances of logos reinforcing a different rhetorical device. In addition to this, Haimon ends his speech with a logical appeal since he must have known it was his most effective appeal. “The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach” (Sophocles

They conclude this indicates the pathos present in Haimon’ speech fulfilled their purpose. While other people declare the persuasive power of credibility is the most effective considering it being the most important appeal to convince an arrogant, perverse king. Although both of these arguments have some merit, they aren’t entirely correct. Firstly, Creon was enraged for the reason that Haimon was telling him he was mistaken in his decisions as the king. Also, contrary to people’s beliefs, anger was not the reaction Haimon was hoping for. Instead Haimon planned to cause his father to feel so guilty that he would free Antigone. Therefore Creon’s anger couldn’t possibly be the results of Haimon’s pathos. Secondly, Haimon had very effective ethos, but they failed to convince his father he was credible. This is shown when Creon responds to Haimon’s speech with the question “You consider it right for a man of my years and experience to go to school to a boy?” (Sophocles 794). This proves Haimon failed to overcome the challenge of convincing the king he was a credible