In the Native American origin stories and trickster stories, Momaday synthesizes compelling dissertations that the early inhabitants of North America “had some sense of society, of community, of cooperation… a human sense of morality, an irresistible craving for order, beauty, appropriate behavior and as ‘intensely spiritual’.” Momaday deftly delivers a cogent argument to sway his readers by using three of Aristotle’s ways to persuade. Aristotle uses ethos which incorporates ethics, image, and credibility; pathos which links to emotion (passion); and logos which is based off facts, evidence, and reason. By using ethos, pathos, and logos the author is able to characterize the early inhabitants of North America.
Throughout the Native American…show more content… A profuse number of examples of pathos and logos are also used in the stories to prove that early inhabitants were “intensely spiritual”. In the story “Coyote Gets Stuck”, Coyote shows frustration with another coyote. The Coyote gave the other coyote Pitch “a good whack, but now his left hand was stuck… Coyote got more and more frustrated”. This story displays Coyote’s feelings and emotions towards the other fox. Pathos can now be used to for Momaday to persuade his audience that the animals are “intensely spiritual”. The early inhabitants are also characterized as being “intensely spiritual” in the story “How the World was Made”. In this story, the Great Buzzard flew all over the Earth and when he reached the Cherokee country he became tired, “his wings began to flap and strike the ground, and wherever they stuck the Earth there was a valley, and where they turned up again there was a mountain”. This shows how Momaday uses logos to persuade. In the Cherokee country remains full of mountains to this day. The Great Buzzard would be characterized as “intensely spiritual” for creating these valleys and
