Black Beauty: The Measure of Humanness

pathos – (LITERARY ELEMENT) the capacity of an artist to actually activate genuine human feeling through a work/the reader’s ability to achieve the human element of empathy by indulging in another’s plight and seeing, feeling, and sharing their condition

sympathy – the capacity to feel a certain level of emotion with someone

empathy – the capacity to feel the same feelings of another’s actual degree of suffering

apathy – the capacity to be completely removed from humanistic/humanoid drives to care, feel, and share another’s suffering

The goal of the writer is to individually enlighten a group in an area where they are currently darkened.

Obviously, the pre-Black Beauty world lived in a sort of “matrix” where the masses did not see or feel certain anti-human behavior.

By analyzing three specific events in the narrative, take a position and argue, in a five-paragraph essay citing three sources, whether or not Anna Sewell achieved the writer’s goal – pathos – through her work based on your assessment as an individual reader.  Support your position as to why/why not the author has succeeded/failed to achieve pathos; furthermore, discusses the reader’s role in the success/failure of achieving this degree of humanity.

-Use all four provided terms (pathos, sympathy, empathy, apathy)

This is Due on Monday May 3rd. NO EXCEPTIONS!