Question

"In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act. I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind."

In this excerpt from Winston Churchill’s famous speech, “Blood, Toil, Sweat, and Tears,” which of the following is the BEST example of pathos?

Question 2 options:

A. “In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today.”


B. “I hope that any of my friends and colleagues…will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony…”


C. “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”


D. “We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind.”

Answer 1

C. “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”

Pathos in rhetoric is a persuasion strategy based on eliciting feelings in the audience, it is an appeal to their emotions. In this manner, the phrase, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” is the one that most sparks feelings in the audience through the use of vivid language. Other argumentative strategies worth mentioning are those based on character (ethos) and reason/logic (logos), thus the trio: logos, ethos and pathos.