Example Of Pathos In Outliers

Many people view success as merely hard work; dedicating oneself to something completely. Although the recipe for success involves this type of commitment, Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, opened up a new perspective. Although Gladwell states, “....If you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires” (Gladwell 151), he adds that many other things affect one’s ability to succeed. In society today, individuals tend to look at the big prize instead of the path that led them to it. It was very interesting because many stories about success involve time and perseverance, but rarely luck. Outliers gave a refreshing and unique way of looking at how goals are really reached. While the book was in the 3rd person point of view, it was very entertaining because with every chapter came another story that contributed to Gladwell’s overall idea. Throughout the book, Gladwell purposely went into explicit detail to push readers to further visualize and picture themselves in the shoes of the “outliers”. His friendly tone and his narration of anecdotes help captivate the reader. Although his style of writing feels slightly informal, Gladwell is very sincere and wants the readers to understand the misperception of success. In doing so, Gladwell separated the book into two parts; Opportunity and Legacy. By dividing the book into two parts he gives the readers two viewpoints to the overall idea of success and links them

Malcolm Gladwell, through his work in Outliers, writes about extremely successful individuals, “Outliers” and focuses on success and failure. His main argument is that success is a mix of many different factors. It needs a look at what influences and plays a role in why individuals or groups of people thrive or fail. Gladwell collectively builds his argument through the examination of “success stories” in which self-made individuals have overcame great odds and have succeeded based purely off of talent and “merit”

In Outliers, Gladwell attempts to answer, What makes some people successful while others cannot seem to realize their full potential? In U.S. society, people are considered successful when they have traits and characteristics: self-sacrifice, intelligence, talent. However, He says that the conditions and circumstances surrounding our lives are the significant influential factors that determine our success, not our inner ability or talent. These talents and abilities allow these people to be separate from society.

Societal success relies on whatever society values most at a point in time. In the current state of society, this value exists as something quite obvious: money. Money carries with it a sense of glamour and achievement. Earning large quantities of money seems achievable, it acts as clear-cut goal that people can point to and shout, “Hey, that’s success!”. Furthermore, personal success does not offer this luxury, and thus evades people to its true meaning. Malcolm Gladwell’s novel, Outliers, demonstrates this principle perfectly. This novel tells the story of “successful” people; however, according to the definition being explored here, it only examines one aspect of success: societal. This book never mentions the man who considers himself a success because of his action figure collection, but it does mention people who have achieved wealth. Software tycoons, extravagant lawyers, and billionaire geniuses fall amongst a plethora of successful people referenced throughout the course of this book, but a man such as Morrie Schwartz never even receives the smallest amount of consideration. This book does not examine how people achieve success; instead, this book examines how people achieve wealth. As a book about success, Outliers demonstrates how integrated society’s definition of success has become in the modern mindset.

Malcolm Gladwell proposed a mission to find the answer to an obstacle that plagues the modern civilized man; crafting a concrete method to success. Thorough out history we have defined the path towards success to be paved by the individual; through his or her ingenuity, intelligence, and perseverance. Gladwell’ personal opinion about the formula for success is voiced indirectly through his specific real-life examples. His assertion is that with ample amounts of hard work, creativity, personal belief, and intelligence anyone can succeed at shaping the world. To take his statement at face value one needs to realize that it is a generalization of the

Success in society is dependent on individuality and work ethic, but in Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell insists that success is determined by specific opportunities that are uncontrollable. Gladwell’s argument stems on details that are not commonly identified as being relevant to a person’s ultimate success. This includes, birth date, their hometown, and culture. While not traditionally the main topics when considering success, these topics have merit that is shown in Gladwell’s research. However, Gladwell’s novel is somewhat one-sided. Gladwell does acknowledge that there are anomalies to his research, but he disregards anyone’s decisions and work ethic that helped them achieve and continue success. Many people are given opportunities to for instance be a famous piano player by their parents buying them a piano and paying for lessons, but it takes ambition and grit to continue and never give up despite life’s challenges. It is therefore the individuality factor. The determining factor of “outliers” really is their ambition, not their background as Gladwell insists.

Through a series of different tests, Gladwell concludes that we have all too easily bought into the myth that successful people are self-made. He says people “are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” Gladwell explains an outlier as a person “who doesn 't fit into our normal understanding of achievement.” According to Gladwell, great men and women are beneficiaries of specialization, collaboration, time, and place. An outlier’s recipe for success is not personally achieved through hard work, but through opportunity and time on task. I actually agree with Gladwell’s view of success. People can work their whole life towards a goal and never achieve it, but if they know of an opportunity, a legacy, or a specific way to achieve this goal more efficiently, they can be successful. Examples are children being born in the early months to be better at hockey, working on a specific task for 10,000 hours to become proficient, and proper training and excellent communication while flying an airplane.

To use Pathos is to appeal to the emotions of the reader or the audience. The primary goal is to persuade the reader or the audience through the use of key words or language that appeal to the feelings of a person. For example,

Chapter eight of Outliers is about what it takes to be successful. Based on the examples given in the chapter Gladwell is trying to convince the readers that persistence, hard work, dedication and having the mindset of achievement is what leads to success in life. In China, rice was cultivated thousands of years ago. Which spread to East Asia, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. This was a tedious job with no days off, but they had to do it in order to survive. They ate rice as meals, sold rice, and traded rice for other necessities. To push themselves to keep going and never give up, they would say things like “No food without blood and sweat,” and “No one can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family

Success, it is a mystery for some. Malcom Gladwell, however, decided to dive in and figure out the mystery in his novel, Outliers: The Story of Success. In this novel he examined the success of people such as Bill gates and Bill joy and even as far as the success of Korean Airlines. Gladwell brings up the point that people are concentrated on the personalities of the successful and neglect to examine what brought them there. This is why Gladwell’s assertion, “if you work hard enough and assert yourself, and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires” is not supported by his novel because he brought up the importance of time (as in when you are born), opportunities, and culture.

According to the Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell views success as a byproduct of history and community, of opportunity and legacy (285). Although everyone tries to become successful in their life, not all of them get their success because they all have different backgrounds, grow in different environments and different cultures. Moreover, these different situations determine a person’s success by providing different chances. So, the many opportunities the environment provide, the more successful they become. Therefore, success is derived from the environment, and people achieve it through nurture because the community and family supports give a lot of chances, benefits and encouragements that make them become

Outliers, written by Malcolm Gladwell, examines the wonder of high achievement, and success frequently attributed to the hard work, determination, and specific talent in individuals. Gladwell succeeds at analyzing judgments and cultural epidemics, while putting his thesis into view, and explaining his proof through a series of short, exemplifying accounts. Stressing the fact that hard work is a crucial factor in becoming successful, Gladwell does not deduct the need for discrete skills. Factors such as timing, situations, and cultural heritage play a critical role in the success stories within his book. Not only being a well renowned book about success, but Outliers is Gladwell’s song to these silent successors.

Across the world success is thought of as being composed of three main ingredients, “passions, talents, and hard work” (Gladwell 34). Emphasizing these ideals upon the youth has been a priority of parents and leaders for years. We are told that as long as we choose an activity we are passionate and have at least some innate talent for, and then proceed to put in hard work, climbing to the top of the ladder of success will most certainly become a reality. Although this notion of being in control of one's own destiny is ideal, it fails to account the crucial factors of both circumstances and luck. The unfortunate truth is that the odds of a child from a wealthy family becoming successful are exponentially greater than the odds of a child from a poor family doing the same. Author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell, as he does in his other novels, goes against a common belief- this time the notion of success being self attained- in The Outliers. Building upon the idea that circumstances, opportunities, and luck play a crucial role in success, Gladwell makes the argument that “there’s no such thing as a self-made man” (Gladwell “Questions and Topics for Discussion”). To a significant extent I agree with Gladwell’s argument, due to the repeating relevance that one's social situation and luck play in the stories of success used throughout the novel. Despite this however, Gladwell’s argument lacks when accounting for the role that self-formed desire and hard work play when working

The use of pathos can, for example, be seen when the author describes how she felt when she had to shoot a scene naked with another woman: “I had a nervous breakdown: My body began to shake uncontrollably, my breath was short and I began to cry and cry, unable to stop, as if I were throwing up tears.” The author uses pathos because she appeals to the reader's emotions and makes the reader understand how everything that happened has affected her. The author also uses pathos when she says: “I had to…” By using this, the author makes the reader understand how inferior she was – she could not continue working with the movie without Harvey Weinstein – she was dependent on him. Finally, the author also uses pathos when she says: “We…” By using this, the author makes the reader understand that her experiences are not isolated incidents, but something that is happening and has happened to several

Success is a concept that has blinded numerous people in society into believing that it involves only luck and hard work. Although these two factors do play a role, there are several other major aspects that are necessary to achieve success. This idea is explored in the nonfiction novel Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, which explains the many factors at work in the typical success stories. Despite the fact that I have not yet completed the book, I’ve read enough to organize my thoughts as well as comprehend the rhetorical situation/strategies.