Evaulating The Two Paragraphs

I found the Michael Kroll's essay on the death penalty to be much more persuasive than the one by Mencken. Kroll's use of Pathos in his essay pulled at just the right heart strings and made me think predominantly with my empathetic heart rather than my rational mind. I was specifically persuaded by the description of Robert Harris' death. Kroll wrote that his friend was "strangled slowly to death in front of [Kroll]" as he "writhed for seven minutes, his head falling on his chest, saliva drooling from his open mouth." As I read this I could not help to feel sorrow for this man. While Kroll's essay relied on pathos and was very persuasive, Mencken's essay employed more logos and in turn was not nearly as persuasive. I felt excluded from the piece, only a bystander reading it. The arguments in favor of capital punishment were fashioned around simple analogies that over simplified the issue and in the end created a feeling of apathy in me. When writing to persuade on such a touchy subject, Kroll's approach of pathos worked much more effectively than Mencken's dumbed down logos.