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 worked hard on my garden from the first hint of spring, I raked, and hoed and pitchforked. I hauled in sacks of manure. I prepared the ground. Our lives were dreary. As a cashier at Mr. Preshet’s Kamra-Mart, I hardly made enough money to support my family. Every once-n-awhile I would buy a fresh carrot for Little Ralph. Although he had a mustache, he was only two years old. I loved sitting and watching him gnaw on his carrot like he was a little bunny rabbit. My wife Nutsy can’t get a job because of chronic body odor—CBO. She contacted it when she started jogging. The exercise triggered her sweat glands to overreact. She can’t use deodorants because of the overreactive glands’ intolerance to the deodorant’s chemical ingredients. So, without her working, we can’t afford to put fresh vegetables (or frozen!) into our shopping cart. It’s down to the garden.
I went to Lowe’s and bought some seed packets—acorn and yellow squash, watermelon, radishes, carrots, peppers, okra, and corn, and some tomato plants. Tomatoes were one of Little Ralph’s favorites; right up there with carrots. He would twirl the ends of his mustache, and then plunge his little fingers into the tomato’s thin red skin.
The next day we raked again, and then planted everything. It didn’t take long for everything to start sprouting. It was beautiful. Soon there were ripening tomatoes, squash blossoms, and lots of little leaves from the other vegetables. We were going to have fresh vegetables! Little Ralph twirled his mustache and clapped his hands. This was his ultimate expression of happiness. We were fans of Salvatore Dali and would watch newsreels of him. Little Ralph would watch too. Sometimes Dali would twirl his mustache, and that’s where we think Little Ralph got his mustache-twirling from, but maybe not. So, anyway, we couldn’t wait, se we picked a green tomato and sliced it, breaded it, and fried it. It so good, it even made Nutsy happy and smell a little better too. We all went to bed.
The next morning he was on his fourth cup of coffee and third jelly donut when he heard a weird sound in the back yard—a combination of grunting and scratching. He looked out the kitchen window and there was line of about 30 groundhogs mowing down the garden. They’d already eaten half of it. He grabbed the kitchen mop and ran outside to beat them to death. They weren’t having it. Before he could land a blow, they swarmed him.
He called for Nutsy, but by the time she got there, they were gone, and her husband lay bleeding on the ground. Little Ralph was crying in the kitchen window. Nutsy called 911, next she set up a “Go Fund Me” site! She’d been waiting for an opportunity like this—she was going to go for $1,000,000.
Everything went well. No fatalities, and $1,000,000 raised. But, in the hustle bustle of it all, Little Ralph didn’t get his revered carrot. He ventured out the front door and was run over and killed by a Good Humor ice cream truck driving through the neighborhood ringing its bells.
Little Ralphie’s little headstone has a carrot engraved on it with a quote from Bugs Bunny: “What’s up doc?” Poor Little Ralph.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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