Examples Of Ethos In The Declaration Of Independence

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The Declaration of Independence is an extremely important document to the United States. Thomas Jefferson receives the most credit for writing the declaration, however he was assisted by five other men that were apart of the Constitutional Congress. They wrote the declaration to persuade the colonist to break free from Britain. The Declaration of Independence uses numerous persuasive appeals and language, including parallelism, pathos, and ethos. Parallelism is “a pattern in writing in which words and phrases are similar in structure, one echoing another.” It can be found in the declaration numerous times to describe the hatred towards the king. They show this when they use, “For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: for imposing taxes on …show more content…

Pathos is “the quality of speech or written work that appeals to the emotions of the audience.” For instance, “plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.” The words ravaged, and destroyed are emotional words to describe the unjust actions the king did to them. Also it is demonstrated in, “Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.” This proves the colonists opinions on the king, showing how he is not worthy to lead their uprising nation. Ethos is “the character and credibility of the writer in the eyes of the reader.” An example of this is, “We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions..”. The author shows their credibility by stating they are representatives of the United States of America. The authors also portrayed this by, “In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms.” By saying this, the authors show they have tried to set agreed terms with

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