Pathos is the persuasive appeal to the audience’s emotions. Aristotle listed it among the three primary modes of rhetoric, alongside ethos and logos.

A speaker or writer who uses pathos seeks to evoke pity, anger, fear, pride, or other feelings that will dispose the audience toward a particular conclusion or action. Vivid stories, charged imagery, and direct address to the audience’s values are common techniques. Pathos is powerful and potentially manipulative; ethical persuasion pairs it with credible character and sound reasoning rather than relying on emotion alone.

In literature, pathos refers to the quality that evokes tender or sorrowful feeling in the reader—the plight of a suffering character, for example. Excessive or unearned pathos becomes sentimentality. Effective pathos feels grounded in the situation and respectful of the audience’s capacity to feel without being coerced.

The element of persuasion or art that moves the heart is pathos.