Things appear different to someone under the influence of emotion. (Wisse, 1985). Wisse claims that people perceive communicative messages differently while they are under the influence of emotion. One example of this would be when orators and writers use the Aristotelean proof of Pathos. Throughout his address to the Massachusetts people in regards to the Chappaquiddick incident, Ted Kennedy cleverly used the Aristotelian proof of pathos to portray himself as a victim in order to come out a flawed hero, which I will be defining in the second paragraph. Before Ted Kennedy could be considered a flawed hero, he had to first portray himself as a victim.
Ted Kennedy first portrays himself as a victim in his speech to soften the audience in order to have a more persuasive effect on them later on in his address. When he states the line “Little…show more content… In other words, even though they were not able to ‘save the day’, the majority of people still show praise and hope the best for the hero. I would classify Ted Kennedy as a flawed hero because in his speech he states “I remember thinking as the cold water rushed in around my head that I was for certain drowning.” The words Ted Kennedy chose to use like cold water, rushed, and drowning invoke a feeling of sorrow for the speaker and draw attention away from the woman he killed. This is why I would consider his words as a strategic use of Pathos. The way he describes how the cold water rushed in around his head and made him feel like he was drowning is a way of casting himself as a flawed hero due to the fact he wants the audience to understand the struggles and challenges he was forced to face in order to try to save Mary Jo. Now that Kennedy has successfully portrayed himself as a victim, he successfully led the audience to believe that he is a flawed
