Ethos And Logos In The Life Of Brent Staples '

1. What Staples means when he refers to his brother’s death by saying, “The way the two were living, death could have come to either of them from anywhere,” is that the murder could have gone either way meaning his brother could have just as easily murdered his friend or an outside force, it was only a matter of time. Roanoke, Virginia was a city riddled with violence, crime, and thugs. Living in such a toxic environment, death would be imminent which was the case for Staples brother, Blake. It was unfortunate that the two friends could not settle an argument over a girlfriend and had to resort to murder.

2. Blake and his murder were once friends or as Staples would put it, “the two had once been inseparable friends” (paragraph 1). Their friendship, however, diminished when the pair feuded over a girlfriend. From there, they began to act like they were better than each other that then resulted into threats towards each other. The threats then became more violent and ultimately followed the death of Blake. Cloaked in a ski mask, Blake’s friends shot him six times and then fled the scene. As one thing led to another, a friendship came to a bitter end that night.

3. I believe that Staples wrote this essay to highlight the senseless

The use of ethos throughout Staples essay helps it progress because the examples given in the essay are not of fiction. Brent Staples did grow up in Chester, Pennsylvania and later on in his life peruse higher education. Fabricating his essay about his brother’s death would ruin his credibility as a writer and publisher as well was ruin the emotional effect his writing could evoke on to readers. If the author of the essay would have been an old Caucasian man, the essay would lose all credibility because readers would feel that a person like that does not know what life is like for a young African American male. So, by Staples being a truthful storyteller, he is able to connect to his audience and hopefully make an impact on their