Terryce Nederhood
2-20-13
A.P Lang & Comp
On Compassion
Authors write for many reasons. Many do it because they love being able express what
they feel and think on paper, others do it as a way to make a living; however, many do it in order
to share a personally experience, or fictional story, in hopes that it will touch others, or teach
them a valuable lesson. Although some writers just sit down and write because it is a hobby, or
cathartic to them, most writers do it because they feel that they have an important story to share
or they feel as if something that they have learned is so important that they must share it with
everyone else. They don’t want to waste the time that could be doing something else just for their
own good, they want people to be able to read and learn from their experiences, so they take the
time out of their lives to help make the reader’s lives better. One way to tell what message the
writer is trying to send to their reader is by analyzing their writing.
In “On Compassion”, an article written by Barbara Lazear Ascher, the writer examines
her personal feelings on homelessness and how society treats those people who don’t have
homes. She takes the readers on a journey through a story of a man walking down the streets of
New York and then examines how people felt and acted toward him. Throughout the writing,
Ascher was able to place poignant questions in the readers mind. She lit the fire inside of her
readers and made them think about how society treats the homeless, and how they really should
be treated. After that issue is closely looked at, Ascher takes a deeper look into compassion and
discusses what she thinks true compassion really is. By taking a closer look at the writing style
and rhetorical devices use by Ascher, it is possible to evaluate her thoughts even further.
A person’s attitude can be shown many different ways: the way that they act, the things
that they say, or even the non-verbals that they give off during any situation. Attitude is more
easily understood if the person is understood; the same goes for writing. If the reader is able to
understand the attitude of the writer, then it is possible for the reader to relate to the writer. One
way to make writing relatable is to appeal to the reader’s emotion, or use pathos. Throughout the
entire story the reader begins to feel the pain of the homeless man. They see everything through
his eyes: how he feels, how people treat him, and how he reacts to people’s attitudes towards
him. Right away the reader begins to feel a connection with the man. They automatically want to
help him, even if he isn’t a real man. The author was able to describe the man’s life in such great
detail that the reader feels as if he is a real man that is suffering because people don’t take the
time to care about anyone but themselves. Appealing to pathos really helps a writer convey their
message. As soon as the reader’s emotions are triggered, their opinions about something tend to
change, or they will at least take some time to try and understand where the other person is
coming from. The homeless man in the story may not be real, but there is most likely a homeless
person living nearby that could use a little help every once in a while. Even if writers have the
ability to greatly appeal to pathos, if they don’t act like they believe in what they are trying to
teach their audience, all credibility is lost.
Everyone hates a hypocrite. If the reader knows that the writer is saying one thing, but
actually means another, there is no way that the reader will take the time to think about the points
that the writer is bringing up. Throughout the story, Ascher is able to keep a compassionate tone,
and with that comes a compassionate attitude. She knows that if she wants her audience to
reconsider their compassion, which she needs to convey that emotion throughout the entire story.
Not once in the story does Ascher say anything negative about a person being homeless. The
reader can feel that she truly understands that being homeless is not necessarily a person’s
Terryce Nederhood
2-20-13
A.P Lang & Comp
choice, and that they don’t need people to make their lives harder than what it has to be. When
Ascher says that, “We cannot deny the existence of the helpless as their presence grows. It is
impossible to insulate ourselves against what is at our very doorstep,” she is telling her audience
that because homelessness is an issue that will not go away just by being ignored. Ascher is
trying to get her audience to realize that they are the only solution, the only way to fix what they
feel as “broken” is to start fixing it yourself. Her goal by writing this story was to make people
reconsider the way that they not only treated the homeless, but the way that they treat everyone
that they come in contact with. Not only is it easy for a reader to relate to a writer through
credibility, but through great attention to detail.
When a writer is able to appeal to each of the five senses, their writing is able to come to
life. Once the reader feels so involved in the story that they can physically place themselves
inside of it, they are able to get the most out of the writing. Ascher not only appeals to vision
when she is describing how the homeless man looks, but she appeals to sound when she
describes the busy streets of New York, the sense of smell when she describes the ragged look of
the homeless man, the sense of touch when the woman hands the man a five dollar bill, and the
sense of taste when the woman removes the lipstick out of her purse. Ascher is able to describe
things that are familiar to everyone in order to easily place them in the setting of her story.
Because the author does such a good job of describing the scene that the story takes place in, a
sense of trust is developed between the reader and the author. The readers begin to think that
because the setting is described so well, the author must have been there or experienced it before.
Through excellent descriptions, a writer is able to take the readers to a place that they may or
may not have been to before. The writer’s attitude toward compassion can be discovered through
their description of the actions that people take toward the homeless man. The writer describes a
baby and its mother to show a contrast. The baby is young, naïve, and doesn’t know the
difference between the richest man in the world and the homeless man on the street; they treat
everyone the same. Whereas the mother looks down on the homeless man, not only because he is
poor and living on the street, but because she is of a higher status and class than he is. Ascher
uses this to illustrate her attitude towards compassion; she believes that everyone is capable of it
and that maybe everyone should learn a lesson from babies and learn to be compassionate to
everyone.
Every writer has a purpose for writing. Every word, every sentence, every comma and
period is placed in an exact way. Ascher wrote “On Compassion” to give people another chance
and reason to examine their lives. She wanted people to take a deeper look at the way they
treated not only people that were less fortunate than them, but others in general. Ascher wanted
people to take a second look on how something small, like five dollars, or a small meal, can
make all the difference in a person’s life. The next time a homeless person asks for money,
maybe one of the readers of Ascher’s story will make a difference and help out someone less
fortunate than them.