Pathos

Pathos stirs up emotions of pity, sympathy, and sorrow that can be expressed in a work through words, pictures, or body gestures. (Source: Pathos, Literary Devices, literarydevices.net.)

Pathos “is an appeal to emotion, and is a way of convincing an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response.”

Ethos “is an appeal to ethics, and it is a means of convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader.”

Logos “is an appeal to logic, and is a way of persuading an audience by reason.”

(Source: Examples of Ethos, Logos, and Pathos, Your Dictionary, examples.yourdictionary.com)

View these examples of each.

Examples of pathos in literature

GIF by giphy.com

Function of Pathos

Humans are emotional beings, and emotions are part of real life. When writers touch upon emotions of pity, sympathy, and sorrow, they develop a connection with readers. Pathos expression helps writers bring their narratives, characters, and themes closer to real life, thus closer to readers. (Source: Pathos, Literary Devices, literarydevices.net.)

Pathos and POV are linked in that the job of narrators and characters is to stir up emotion and build sympathy.

Deep POV

POV in writers’ lingo stands for point of view. Read more here.

Kristen Lamb defines “Deep POV” as

Deep POV is simply a technique that strips the author voice completely out of the prose. There is no author intrusion so we are left only with the characters. The reader is nice and snuggly in the “head” of the character.

In her article, Kristen Lamb instructs writers to “ditch the tags” (he said)–instead, just write the action–and lose thought and sense words (felt, knew, saw, thought). For example,

She thought, He is going to kill me.

We don’t need “She thought”:

He is going to kill me.

The thought is written in italics if you’re not writing in first person. The fact that “she thought” it is obvious. Leaving out such words tightens writing, prevents author intrusion, and makes the reader feel closer to the story, even inside it.

For more background, please read Kristen Lamb’s article DEEP POV–What is It? Why Do Readers LOVE It?. She discusses trends in writing and how they have changed, defines Deep POV, and provides useful examples. Kristen is an author, freelance editor, and speaker. She has years of sales and promotion experience.

See also: Indirect Discourse in Third-Person POV

All the posts: Components of Literature A to Z

Q is for Quite the Quest