Argumentation

In the article “Only Love and Then Oblivion”, Ian McEwan uses both direct and indirect argumentation to show the importance of empathy and to point out that the terrorists would not have been able to carry out their attacks on September 11, 2001 if they had felt empathy towards their victims. 

Direct argumentation is used at the end, when McEwan shows how the attackers lacked a basic human trait that prevented them from seeing the gravity of their actions. The article argues that the hijackers would not have performed these acts if they had been able to imagine what the victims were going through, since the ability to empathize with others would have prevented them. According to this argument, “It is hard to be cruel once you permit yourself to enter the mind of your victim” (p. 129, l. 30). In this way, the article concludes that the attackers were motivated by hatred, in contrast with the victims, who thought of their loved ones and tried to call them to say goodbye. 

An example of indirect argumentation is given when the article contrasts the actions of the victims to those of the terrorists, implying their significance. Love is compared to a weapon, that the victims “set against the hatred of their murderers” (p. 128, l. 34). The writer calls the victims’ final calls to their loved ones an unknowing act of “defiance” (p. 129, l. 39), implying that the terrorists have somehow lost because of their lack of empathy. This suggests that people will always remember the victims and their final calls, while the hijackers will be forgotten.

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