Can anyone criticize my essay? (its a draft and short)

The question for the essay is :

To what extent do the writers make us feel sympathy for one or more of the characters...

Its not finished, but just need to know where i'm at with this draft!

Any comments are welcome!

Writers have the power to create sympathy that can be quantified through textual interpretation and youthful self-reflection grounded in individual episodic memories. The short stories 'Pieces of silver' by Karl Sealy and 'Games at twilight' by Anita Desai are moving examples of sympathy in literature. They write about a day in the lives of the protagonists Clement and Ravi. The writers use pathos, paralipsis, the stories respective themes and a third person point of view to make us feel sympathy for the characters.


Sealy has used exclamation verbs to create pathos which evokes feelings of sympathy for Clement from the readers. One example of this is when Clement is introduced to us: "Come, Clement. You're in the fourth. Step forward and let's hear Mark Antony on ingratitude." Through this quote and the exposition, Sealy has vividly painted a picture of what the boys and the headmaster's attitudes and demeanor are like. The headmaster has singled out Clement and gone further to compare to him to the traitor 'Brutus', whom Mark Antony was referring to when he said "ingratitude, stronger than traitors arms..".

The next example is in the same scene, when Clement is going up to recite the passage: "Clement stepped forward, shabby and barefoot, and with eyes downcast...". Sealy has used implicit adjectives to make us feel pity for Clement here. 'Shabby' and 'Barefoot' help us keep a clear picture of how Clement is presented; a poor boy. Then Sealy goes on to say 'eyes downcast' , which could imply that Clement has been artificially brainwashed into thinking that he is a traitor; ashamed of himself; embarrassed, ungrateful and deserves his punishment.

The prior points are all concluded by the way the writer has conveyed the way Clement feels when he is 'put on a pedestal' . We see this at the end of the scene when the narrator is telling us about the situation: "Now and again the schoolmaster threatened him with his rod, exhorting him to speak up. The boy would raise his voice and quicken his words under the threat of the lash." Sealy arouses feelings of sympathy in the readers minds through his use of the verbs 'threatened' and 'exhorting' towards Clement. This is amplified when Clement's voice 'raises' and 'quickens'. Through Clements conduct we can infer that he is terrified and feeling pressured due to the 'tyrannical' demeanor of the headmaster Mr.Chase.As a result, the reader forms the impression that Clement is being bullied and mis-treated by a higher power, making the reader feel pity towards Clement; a feeling of helplessness. (sealy is showing us what it was like to be a boy deemed as

Desai has also made us feel sympathy for protagonist Ravi through her carefully constructed use of pathos. We see this when we are introduced to Ravi: "Ravi heard the whistling and picked his nose in a panic...".Desai is evoking sympathy from the readers by conveying what Ravi can perceive at that specific moment. Ravi 'picking his nose in a panic' explicitly shows his childlike mixture of excitement and fear. This is emphasized further when he is 'burrowing his finger deep'. This could imply that he is scared and wants to hide; an emotion we can all relate to and show sympathy for.

Another way Sealy has made us feel sympathy is the way he has employed the use o

Desai also uses a rhetorical device - paralipsis to evoke sympathy from the reader. (reaching den) and (the ending - death)