Forms of appeal

In Ian McEwan’s article, “Only Love and Then Oblivion”, the dominating form of appeal is pathos. The writer appeals to the readers’ emotions because, to him, the most important consequence of the attacks on September 11, 2001 is the human loss of life and the emotional impact on both the victims’ relatives and the world at large. 

Pathos

Pathos is used when McEwan introduces visual descriptions of what happened after the attacks, such as the towers collapsing (p. 127, l. 4), “the couple jumping into the void, hand in hand” (p. 127, l. 8-9), or the relatives of the victims walking around with pictures of their loved ones, trying to find out what had happened to them (p. 128, 9-10). These were all images that the readers had most likely seen on the news. The writer reminds them of these images, making them relieve ...