Imagine living as a prisoner for 18 years. And this isn't an actual prisoner, but it is an 11-year-old girl. Her name was Jaycee Lee Dugard. She was just an ordinary girl walking to school on a sunny morning when all of a sudden a man pulls up in a car for directions. Next thing she knows, she is grabbed and paralyzed from head to toe by a stun gun. There is no doubt about Dugard's credibility. She is writing her experience of the way she remembered it. This is from her point of view. It can't get any more credible than that.
Anyone who reads this story would have one word in the back of their minds: kidnap. Kidnapping has existed years and years before it happened to Dugard. People have tried to stop kidnapping for generations. Unfortunately, kidnapping still occurs today.
The mind-boggling question is, why did she write it? Most people would be embarrassed of sharing what they have been through. But not Dugard. She felt that keeping her story from the world would be protecting her kidnapper. She wanted to show the world that kidnapping isn't a joke, that it is nothing compared to how it is portrayed in movies.
Her intended audience was everyone. However, she wanted to reach out to those who have been in a tough situation before. She wanted to show that people should appreciate their lives and that a "C" on a math test doesn't matter. Throughout the memoir she conveys that if she can live through something that she did, then other people should fight through any of their struggles.
Dugard mostly appealed to pathos because everything she wrote in her memoir was true. Every emotion, every thought, every pain she had was real. She often says the word "lonely" in her memoir, which can bring people to think sadly about an 11-year-old girl alone for 18 years. The fact that every thing was true makes her appeal to pathos, because people could read it and think, "Wow, that is just awful! How did she live through that?" But no matter how people try to understand how she felt, they will never be able to explicitly comprehend everything she went through.
Jaycee Lee Dugard wanted people to see what she went through and that kidnapping is no joke. From reading this story, I was absolutely able to receive the message. It is amazing how she remained sane. She believed that if she went crazy, then her kidnapper would have won. She doesn't use any phony language to sound smart; she just wrote the way she would have told any story. Her goal wasn't to be pitied, but for others to see what a real kidnapping was. By being 100% credible, appealing to pathos, and writing in a first-person account, Dugard accomplished her purpose.
11-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard
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