Saavedra 1

Claire Saavedra
Ms. Oberg
English 11
11/19/14
Rhetorical Devices

In the short story, Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there are a lot of
rhetorical devices used. (Define Rhetorical). Pathos and Imagery/Sensory detail are two very
common types of rhetorical devices. These two rhetorical devices help me get a better
understanding of this short story. Pathos provides emotion that helps connect to the reader.
Imagery/Sensory details help make the story more alive; it puts color into it.
According to Aristotle, pathos is a convincing appeal to emotion, sympathy, passions, etc.
Pathos helps the reader understand the characters emotion toward whatever subject they are
talking about, gives a descriptive detail about the story, and also gives out appealing information.
For pathos I put this quote, Prithee put of your journey until sunrise and sleep in your own bed
to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts thats shes afeard of
herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year
(Paragraph 2). Faith, his wife does not want him to leave; she has bad dreams and does not want
to be alone. Out of all the nights she wants her husband to stay tonight. This quote it is pathos
because she is expressing her affection to her husband. In quote says, There is my wife, Faith. It
would break her dear little heart; and Id rather break my own (Paragraph 24). Goodman Brown
is showing how much he loves Faith and would do anything for her. Even break his heart before
she does. He is showing passion and sympathy for her beloved wife, Faith. In addition to pathos
it says, A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become

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from the night of that fearful dreamWhen the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and
fervid eloquence, and, with his hand in the open Bible, of the scared truths of our religion, and of
saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then did
Goodman brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down upon the gray blasphemer
and his hearers (Paragraph 73). So basically ever since he had that fearful dream with the devil
he has changed his ways religiously because now he knows the truth of his religion and this
shows the readers his emotion toward his religion. He thought he knew everything about his
religion until the devil told him and he feels like he has been betrayed or lied to.
Imagery/Sensory Details are figurative languages that causes people to imagine the
picture in their minds or which invokes one of the other senses: taste, touch, sound, and smell. It
is like giving color to the story instead of being black and white all the time. For example it
says, He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest and there is
this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveler knows not who may be concealed by the
innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be
passing an unseen multitude (Paragraph 8). Goodman Brown had taken a dull road and as you
can see it is vague and frightening that anyone can just pop out of nowhere without being seen.
This gives us an image of a dark bleak road and this rhetorical device helps reader understand the
place their in. Another example of the rhetorical device is that he is at this setting and it says,
While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament and had lifted his hands to pray,
a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried across the zenith and hid the brightening stars. The
blue sky was still visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping
northward (Paragraph 47). This gives us an image of him praying which is very spiritual but
then clouds hide the bright stars and zenith, which is the highest point reached by a celestial or

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other object, and later on it gets dark all of a sudden it is the opposite of spiritual. Another
example of imagery/sensory details is and it says, The cry of grief, rage, terror was yet piercing
the night There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into
far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away. Leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman
Brown (Paragraph 49). He thought he heard Faith cry out in suffering so he freaked out and
called out to her on agony but didnt reply later it started disappearing with a fading of laughter
and the stars were not hidden anymore and there were clear skies. This gives us an imagery and
sensory detail of what is happening.
These two rhetorical devices help me understand the story, Young Goodman Brown by
Hawthorne better because for Pathos it gives emotion to the story and also gives out the authors
point of view. For Imagery/Sensory Details it gives us the five senses which people are already
familiar with and it gives the reader a little bit of imagination and creativity.