Rhetorical Analysis Of 'When Child Soldiers Grow Up'

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Pages: 5

Child soldiers are children under the age of 18 who are used in the military for any source of benefit. Child soldiers worldwide have become a huge issue, leading to many unnecessary deaths as well as lifelong mental trauma. Many children get brought into war under the age of 10 without any other options, and both boys and girls are subjected to the traumatic experience of war. This is an issue that dozens of countries have taken part in, making it an extremely important global issue.
An article called “When Child Soldiers Grow Up” by Clair Macdougall was published onto Newsweek Global, and tells a story of a woman named Mary Goll, who is a former child soldier and fought in the Liberian Civil War. Mary was ripped from her childhood at the
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The first one being Ethos. Ethos relates to ethics, meaning it talks about the ethical aspect of whatever issue is at hand. Source B does a better job of relating to the ethical aspect of child soldiers, due to the fact that it addresses the law, which most commonly synchronizes with ethical decisions. Although, what is legal is not always ethical. For example, they mention how children have been fighting in every major armed conflict in the world today, which in incredibly unethical. However, children fighting in the wars that they did were definitely legal at the time that they fought. Source A relates to ethics slightly when discussing the ethical value of the life of Mary Goll, and how her past has impacted her daily …show more content…
Pathos identifies with the emotional aspect of the reader. Basically, the author would need to try to give the reader an emotional story that would essentially make the reader sympathize with the author, and more importantly the subject at hand. Source A very well uses pathos in a way that impacts me more as a reader than source B. This is because source A deals with the true story of Mary Goll, who had a life full of brutality and chaos, and turned it around for the better. What got to me regarding emotion is the fact that Mary hides her mental trauma with the rough exterior that war had taught her, as well as dominating independence. Mary will not let herself get too close to anybody, due to the training and mentally destructive culture she was surrounded with. Source B does not appeal to emotion hardly at all; which is a problem for a reader like me, who greatly relates to the emotional aspect of