Use of Pathos In Emily Carr's "Sophie"

Aristotle felt that the use of Pathos was a key tool in his “Trivium” of literature. Pathos is the passion within the writing, the feelings and sense of experience fused into the piece. It appeals to the reader’s heart and emotions. Emily Carr’s short story “Sophie” uses this concept of Pathos to build emotive power and manipulate the reader’s emotions to reflect those in the story.

The reader can’t help but empathize with little Sophie, who “chatters like a sparrow” to her trusted friend Emily, but becomes shy and self-conscious around her own husband. This is a woman who endures unimaginable tragedy over the course of this story. The loss of twenty-one children is an unbearable concept, yet this woman, with her “soft little body, and a back as straight as honesty itself” has borne this burden.

Pathos is strongly apparent at the funeral for one of Sophie’s children. The hurt that these women feel comes across explicitly: “torrents of tears burst from their eyes and rolled down their cheeks. Sophie and Sara and Susan did it too. It sounded terrible- like tortured dogs”. The reader feels the torture and pain emanating from these words. He or she doesn’t have to be a mother, father, sibling, or friend of Sophie to empathize with her; Emily Carr has captured and created these emotions in the reader by applying Pathos as a literary tool.

Emily Carr’s utilization of Pathos here is definite. Her own empathy and feeling towards Sophie as a character in the story herself is felt and shared by the reader, a bystander simply watching their story unfold.