Forms of appeal

In “What Life Was Like In South Africa During Apartheid”, Michelle Faul mostly relies on pathos and ethos to make her arguments more convincing. However, there are also a few instances of logo…

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Logos

The writer appeals to reason whenever she presents facts, statistics, or uses a logical line of reasoning to support her case. For example, Faul mentions that “Tens of thousands of people changed their race in this manner” (p. 11, l. 6) referring to black South Africans who passed as a white. She uses figures to show the audience that the ways to assess race in South Africa were inaccurate and even absurd.

Another example is th…

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Pathos

Throughout the article, Faul frequently appeals to readers’ emotions because she shares personal feelings and experiences. For example, she appeals to the sympathy of readers when she shares a childhood trauma:  “We did not disobey, but I started crying — and my sisters bawled, too. We lowered our shorts, but I was so traumatized that I simply could not go.” (p. 10, ll. 8-9)

Similarly, she talks about sadness and pain when she recounts how her grandmother needed to accept that one of her daughters had to pretend not to know her to pass as white: “But with the…