Marian Evan Lewes writes this beautifully constructed letter in order to restore Melusina Fay Pierce’s confidence and to show her position on developing writers. Throughout the letter, Lewes uses different rhetorical devices such as personal experience, to help the reader understand her message and point of view. Through differing tone, methods of appeal, and rhetorical strategies, Lewes develops a very persuasive letter. A main aspect that adds uniqueness to Lewes’s letter is her incredibly convincing, scholarly and reassuring tone. When she used the words “husk, fancy, and melancholy”, in the beginning of her letter. This conveys a very prestige tone that may intimidate Pierce because it expresses Lewes’s status as a writer. Although throughout most of the first and second paragraphs, Lewes is very frightening, she is very softhearted in part of the first paragraph when she tells Pierce that she had to respond due to the beautiful words she sent. She transitions toward an opinionated tone in lines 22-34 when she discusses emerging writers. The reader can tell that she …show more content…
The two that are illuminated the most are ethos and pathos. Lewes has automatic ethos due to her status as a writer. Aside from her automatic ethos, Lewes vaguely uses ethos aside from lines 31-34 when she discusses the stereotypical womanly duties that she and Pierce can relate to. Lewes’s strongest appeal is pathos. From line 29 to the end of her letter, Lewes uses a sufficient amount of pathos. She shows pathos and emotion by using person examples. Some of these personal examples include “I didn’t believe I could do…”, “Something of all that I have…”, and “I enter into those struggles…”. She uses these particular instances to let Pierce know that she is not alone and that she can face these issues because others have gone through it too. She concludes the letter with stories of her husband, and sounding confident for Pierce’s