Tyler Clevenger
Mrs. Parkinson
English III
04 April 2016
How does the author infuse pathos into the reading?
In Lars Eighner's On Dumpster Diving he describes his experiences and observations while he was homeless. Eighner infuses his story with pathos to add color and emotion to his story while also allowing the reader to become more invested in his story. One example of the pathos in Eighner's story is when he is describing the process of learning to dumpster dive, in his description he says,"At first the new scavenger is filled with disgust and self-loathing. He is ashamed of being seen and may lurk around, trying to duck around things, or he may try to dive at night." (718). We've all felt the self pity and shame that Eignher describes in this excerpt, so when he talks about how a new scavenger feels we can understand more thoroughly how they feel by relating their feelings to our own. Another example of pathos in Eighner's writing is when he talks about the pizza shop that threw out pizzas that he then scavenged. In this portion of the text he says,"But the people in the shop became suspicious and began to retain their garbage in the shop overnight. While it lasted I had a steady supply of fresh sometimes warm pizza."(715). In this piece Eignher preys on our sympathy. When he says that the pizza was even sometimes warm we further understand his living condition because we realize or remember that the food he's eating is never warm and often not very fresh. When Eignher infuses his story with pathos he allows us to become further invested in his story through our emotions and he helps us to realize that just by having a roof over our heads no matter how big or small and kind of fresh, kind of warm food, we are lucky.
