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The Emotional, Logical, and Ethical Analysis of Between the World and Me.
Emotion is every individual’s effective form of communication. Factors including gender, status, sexuality, racism, and religion separate humanity into groups; however, emotion creates a link between these elements. Coates’ novel targeted a specific subgroup because he described events, which people who did not belong to the societal labels as him would not be able to comprehend. His use of ethical, emotional, and logical appeals in Between the World and Me remedies this as he describes events more than just discussing statistics, labels, and race.
Coates’s use of pathos in his novel effectively widened our comprehension of race’s implications and foundations in society. The use of an emotional appeal that I resonated with was his repetition and emphasis on the distance between him and other people who came from all walks of life. This is seen in the line, “In other worlds, I was part of a world. And looking out, I had friends who too were part of other worlds, worlds stitched into worlds like tapestry. And though I could never, myself, be a native to any of these worlds, I knew that nothing so essentialist as race stood between us” (Coates, 120). Although the above explanation might not be emotional, the sentiments of conviction and belonging left me thinking about the effectiveness of his attempt to emphasize with other people. While exercising empathy to understand the other person might not be praiseworthy, empathy does not genuinely exist.
Quite contrarily, he utilizes emotional appeals both subtly and starkly to further convince a reader of the worth in understanding things that are inherently unfathomable to them about racism’s implications. The substantiality of this idea is emphasized when he recounts how his friend Dr. Jones was wrongly shot. This grounded his concept of racial discrimination and conveyed the emotional implications of racism in the house of Dr. Jones. This is seen in the line, “What I felt, right then, was that she was smiling through pained eyes that the reason for my visit had spread sadness like a dark quilt over the whole house. I seem to recall music- jazz or gospel- playing in the back, but conflicting with that, I also remember a deep quiet overwhelming everything” (Coates, 136). In this description, Coates reveals the implications of racism within the woman’s emotional veil.
On the other hand, Coates used ethos in his novel to expose the implications of racism in his life as a man of African descent, educated and raised in America and appealed this through the medium of his novel, a memoir. At the onset of the story, Coates kicks off by addressing his son, “Dear son” (Coates, 5). This reveals that this novel is about his son, which helps him build credibility to his readers because he portrays himself as a loving and warm-hearted parent who strives to educate his son about the truth. This is evident in the line “But race is the child of racism, not the father” (Coates, 7). Coates exposes the implications of racism and how it continues to spread in the 21st Century. Besides, he uses ethical ideals in his writing by presenting his experiences as he grew up, granting him credibility as a reader goes on. He can connect with his audience by showing how he dealt with racism and how it impacted his career. He also introduces his audience to historical facts to show that racism has been there for a long. According to Aristotle’s ethos, he brings himself credibility that racism is a crucial topic in the world.
Furthermore, Coates solidified his reasoning on the prejudice faced by African Americans through his expertise in using logos. He urged people of African descent like him to get an education. In his novel, Coates pointed out that “The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free” (Coates, 48). He advises his audience to get educated since African Americans will be freed from slavery. From Coates’s use of logical ideals, we can conclude that White supremacists do not want the Black society to get educated to continue being their slaves. Coates also encouraged his readers to become united. He states that “The entire narrative of this country argues against the truth of who you are” (Coates, 99). He believes that when they stand together as Black people, they will find the truth about them. Logos has also been used by Coates when he urges his readers to face the real world. The world that they live in is unfair, and they should find a way to adjust. Basically, he needs his readers to cease living blindly—Coates’s use of logical ideals aids in understanding his reasoning on highlighting racism.
In conclusion, Coates exposed several issues concerning racism in Between the World and Me by using pathos, ethos, and logos. He provides an outline for his audience to reflect upon to upsurge above racism and highlight education’s importance in curbing discrimination. In the struggle of investigation, a reader can bridge the gap between themselves and other people. Besides, they can understand that since people belong to different worlds, they need not seem to alienate each other.
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