Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates Literary Analysis Essay Example

Ta Nehisi Coates is a fantastic author who writes to his son Samori about the generational struggles & hardships of growing up as a Black man in the United States. Ta Nehisi Coates has composed astonishing books and articles for years, along with his hit “The Black Panther” comic book series written in 2016 with MacArthur Genius. Coates addresses this story to his son and his target audience, other generational children who do not understand Black American history or Black social issues and struggles. Ta Nehisi Coates claims, “But you are a Black boy, and you must be responsible for your body in a way other boys cannot know. Indeed, you must be responsible for the worst actions of other Black bodies, which somehow will always be assigned to you.” (Coates, 71) This is Coates’s claim because it is factual evidence that prejudice & racism occurs against Black Americans, and it is sufficient to be debated whether he should be responsible for other Black bodies. There are logos, ethos, and pathos appeal to convince and persuade readers of their point of view. Coates uses logos and ethos to appeal to his son Samori about the overwhelming & unfair issues of Black childhood, teenage and college life. However, when he uses pathos, it weakens his claim because he fails to hook and persuade the audience of the emotion he is trying to convey. Black Americans in the United States face the hardest racial prejudice and racism out of any other minority group hence, we should stand up for police brutality and other social issues concerning the death of Black Americans.

In this passage, Ta Nehisi Coates uses an ethos appeal to establish trust and credibility with his audience about Samori’s birth name. This strengthens Coates’s claim to name Samori after the struggle because he uses specific Black history and the example of Samori Touré where he established both reliability and relatability in this statement. “The Struggle is in your name, Samori – you were named for Samori Touré who struggled against French colonizers for the right to his own Black body. He died in captivity, but the profits of that struggle and others like it are ours.” (Coates, 68) Ta Nehisi is introducing a credible and relatable source by telling the true story of Samori Touré. By using an experienced figure or celebrity, authors can create trust, authority, and reliability by establishing the needed proof to trust their story or opinion. The definition of ethos is to convince the audience of the credibility of a source by using a popular or reliable figure. We can be sure; that Coates is using an ethos appeal because ethos is defined by the ability to convince the audience of the credibility of the source and here, Coates is using Samori Touré as a popular or reliable figure. Ethos can be secondarily defined as a way an author persuades through moral character, and here Coates is talking about the struggle to own rights to a Black body, which draws us to the personal side because it is immorally right to own a slave or own someone. This only serves to strengthen his claim because he can now convince his son that Black history’s past is his own and the evidence of that struggle is personally connected in his name. It is not morally right for someone else to own your body so this appeals to our ethics and strengthens the appeal and the last part of “…but the profits of that struggle and others are like ours” creates relatability and trust by perceiving that both his son and father’s perspectives would be the same. (Coates, 68) It does not weaken his agreement because he is using supporting evidence from real history that invokes that it could potentially happen to him one day. The way Coates uses a popular figure to appeal to convey and convince his son that he should be named after famous African leader Samori Touré is an excellent appeal to ethos. 

In the second part of the story, Ta Nehisi Coates uses a logos appeal to apply logic and reasoning to the excuse of generational slavery. This strengthens Coates’s claim because he provides factual evidence and a history lesson to convince the reader why it is important not to forget the history of being shackled to chains for 250 years. “Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free. Never forget that for 250 years Black people were born into chains – whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.” (Coates, 70) Here he uses a logos appeal because he uses the historical fact of African slavery as logic and reasoning of why you should never forget the 250 years of Black slavery. Logos is identified through the way an author addresses an argument using reasoning and logic to prove his points with evidence, numbers, or scientific facts. Logos can be numerical data, scientific data, or historical events that have happened. Here he is using a logos appeal because it includes evidence, numbers, and historical events. This supports Coate’s argument because he relies on direct proof of African slavery and factual evidence from the history of African slavery. Another way it strengthens Coate’s claim is because he uses direct historical evidence which is needed to convey how his people were treated in the past and how to avoid it in the future. Ta Nehisi Coates uses a strong example of Black History and numerical evidence to persuade and convince his son through a logos appeal.

At the end of the story, Ta Nehisi Coates uses a pathos appeal to convey and persuade his audience of the emotion toward his argument. Coates’s claim is weakened because the phrase is too general, and it is hard to convey which emotion he is trying to express or persuade. “You cannot forget how much they took from us and how they transfigured our very bodies into sugar, tobacco, cotton, and gold.” (Coates, 71) Coates is using a pathos appeal because he uses emotion to persuade his audience with words like “transfigured” and “cannot forget”. (Coates, 71) The definition of pathos is to convey visual images, to allure or charm with a sense of duty and purpose to influence the audience’s emotions to adopt the writer or speaker’s point of view. We can be sure the writer is using a pathos appeal because he uses the visual images of transfiguring bodies into sugar, tobacco, cotton, and gold to convey a keen sense of emotion urging the reader to not forget the immoral brutality of the body transfiguration. These visual images help to see where the writer is coming from and the underlying feelings and reactions the speaker or writer is trying to convey. His appeal does not strengthen his claim because of how vague the phrase is, and the emotion is too hard to capture in this one sentence. Coates needs to convey more emotion and hook the reader with a type of feeling that will change people’s minds. Secondarily it does not hook the reader with any call to action and it fails to persuade Samori to do something for his identity or elevate his social mobility. When making a call to action, you need the reader to leave knowing they must stand up for this cause, otherwise you will fail to persuade them. Ta Nehisi Coates only weakens his argument by stating the unnecessary & failing to capture a specific emotion strong enough to hook readers into being persuaded by his point of view. This part of his argument was a logos appeal, but it failed to convey and capture the reader’s attention making it a weak appeal to his audience. 

Ta Nehisi Coates is trying to persuade the reader to see his point of view of Black History being a Black man in the United States with generational hardships and struggles as many Black Americans face. Ta Nehisi Coates makes a fantastic argument except for a few points here and there because he uses statistical numbers, evidence from history, and good logic and reasoning for his point of view. When making a persuasive argument, the key factors in making a judgmental decision are position, argument, evidence, counterevidence, and the “Three Modes of Persuasion” logos, pathos, and ethos. He uses pathos to hook the audience with emotion, ethos to establish his credibility, and logos to persuade with logic, evidence, and reasoning. The only part that weakens his persuasive argument is when he tries to use a pathos perspective at the end and does not reveal a specific emotion or hook the audience into believing what he is trying to convey for the conclusion. For a majority of the story, Coates reveals the underlying problem facing America for Black Americans and the solutions to growing up as Black American in the United States. He persuades his readers to step into his point of view, by using the generational hardships of Black history and his childhood years to convince Samori of the responsibility of being a Black body. Overall, Ta Nehisi Coates only strengthens his claim with hard facts, evidence, reasoning, and logic to support & capture the audience, with his personal experience of Black History and the racism and prejudice of growing up as a Black Body in the United States.