Friday, October 6, 2017
Pathos in "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane
In the song "Jefferson Airplane" songwriter Grace Slick tries to parlay her message of a drug experience through the descriptive usage of pathos through metaphor. Particularly, instead of describing verbatim her experiences, she uses the analogy of Alice in Wonderland to connect with an audience that may not have experienced hallucinogens before. By using a children's story that most of her audience is familiar, Slick is able to illicit an emotional response from her audience, seeing her experience and connecting with the experience of the characters in the story. Through this she is also able to help her argument against disapproving parents by having her audience side with her through their connection to Alice in Wonderland. This use of pathos strengthens her message and makes it more clear and descriptive to the listener, having the imagery of the children's story do her work for her. Pathos is an appeal to emotions and hopes to create an emotional response. Without her metaphor to Alice in Wonderland, the song seems more like a lecture and does not have the same emotional appeal as before. Pathos pushes the song from the mind of the listener to the heart of the listener
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Great job here. This is nicely composed and the argument is quite clear! I like how you're talking about such a well known story "doing the work for her." Can you bring up any textual examples?
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The strong emotional response the audience gets from the references that Airplane makes definitely strengthen her argument. The occasional references to their parents also appeals to pathos to show the reader that they should make their own decisions concerning drugs.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of your points and think that pathos is a strong appeal in this text. The Alice in Wonderland references are aimed toward the younger generation and are utilized to show that drugs can make you feel happy, as the movie Alice and Wonderland made you feel as a kid.
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of your points and the usage of Alice and Wonderland can be an appeal to pathos for people to understand well of people that go through hallucinogens and the victimization of it. Especially since Alice and Wonderland is used as a cartoon for younger kids, it provides an appeal to pathos by showing drugs and how it can change how you feel and mobilize. Yes, Alice and Wonderland was a very captivating and free cartoon where everything was in swirls and in a happy like context, but underneath the surface shows the depths of Alice being lost and afraid.
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