Pathopoeia ( path-o-poy’-a): A general term for speech that moves hearers emotionally, especially as the speaker attempts to elicit an emotional response by way of demonstrating his/her own feelings (exuscitatio). Melanchthon explains that this effect is achieved by making reference to any of a variety of pathetic circumstances: the time, one’s gender, age, location, etc.
I had lost my dog Pogo. I never should’ve let him out when they were picking up the garbage in front of my house. There was something about garbage that set Pogo off. I figured I could just follow the garbage truck and I’d find him, nose to the ground and barking his signature “boo-woo-woo” bark. I caught up with the garbage truck. Pogo wasn’t on the trail and he was nowhere to be found following the garbage truck.
I panicked. There was a good chance that Pogo had jumped up into the garbage truck’s hopper, been raked in, and compacted. It would be a fitting death for Pogo—assimilated to the garbage he so dearly loved: to become one with a half-eaten tuna casserole, left-over meatballs, an open jar of mayonnaise, coagulated gravy, rice and whatever else a garbage bag would hold: a garbage bag torn open and garbage strewn all over the back porch. I would get so mad at him. I would lock him in basement. I would consider having him put to sleep. But, I couldn’t do it. When he was a puppy, we fed him table scraps, and he developed an affection for them that was greater than his affection for us—he was addicted to tables scraps and we didn’t intervene. We just yelled at him and locked him in the basement. He would whine and I would yell “Shaddup mutt!” Now, he was likely dead in the back of a garbage truck.
The garbage man told me he’d be emptying the truck at the landfill at 4.30. He told me I was welcome to come and watch and see if my dog “fell out.” I was there when they started dumping. After about 20 minutes, Pogo came sliding out. He had a t-bone steak bone wedged in his mouth. I walked over to him to wrap him in the blanket I’d brought to bring him home in the trunk of my car and bury him somewhere in the back yard. In a way I was relieved—a major pain in the ass removed from my life: I tried to fight the feeling of relief, but I couldn’t. When I saw he was breathing, I cursed my luck. But I had no choice. He was my dog.
After thousands of dollars in vet bills, Pogo is 100%—100% pain in the ass as he’s always been, and he’s developed a new habit: dragging his butt across the living room carpet. We understand it’s worms and we’re taking him to the Vet to get a diagnosis and medication. This is life with our dog Pogo. I kick myself every day for not letting him die in the landfill.
I’ve built him a run in the back yard so we don’t have to let him into the house. As we anticipate his death from old age in a couple of years, we use words like “liberated” or “set free.”
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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