# Pathetic fallacy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 31, 2003, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745 "2003-08-31T03:16:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/1 "2003-08-31T03:16:41Z")
\>t?he Body\*. by **Stephen King** In this passage, just as the boys discover the dead kid’s body; > [@](#): > > ``` > Then the storm came all at once, as if a shower chain had been pulled in the sky. The whispering sound changed to a loud contention. It was as if we were being rebuked for our discovery, and it was frightening. Nobody tells you about the pathetic fallacy until you’re in college ... and even then I noticed that nobody but the total dorks completely believed it *was* a fallacy. > > ``` What the heck is “pathetic fallacy”? I’ve went back and re-read it three times, and I just don’t get it. I understand the words themselves, no problem, but I don’t get the phrase in the context of the paragraph. Maybe some sort of philosophical reference? I’ll probably :smack: when I see the answer. Peace, mangeorge ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/2 "2003-08-31T03:39:25Z")
Pathetic fallacy is the attribution of human traits to inanimate objects. ---
**Author:** ![Eternal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@Eternal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/3 "2003-08-31T03:39:26Z")
Hey! There’s nothing wrong with my fallacy! It’s still growing! ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/4 "2003-08-31T04:18:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by friedo \* > \*\*Pathetic fallacy is the attribution of human traits to inanimate objects. \*\* Well, well, well. Nope, I never would have guessed it. Makes perfect sense now. Thanks, **friedo**. And **Eternal** , you can keep your phallusey to yourself. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![AwSnappity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a3d4f5/32.png) [@AwSnappity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AwSnappity)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/5 "2003-08-31T06:35:09Z")
I think that my high school English teacher used it as a more specific weather-type thing; like when people are sad, it rains; when people are happy, it’s sunny; etc. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2003, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/6 "2003-08-31T11:00:44Z")
The root of “pathetic” is “pathos”, which is the emotional aspect of the mind. Pathetic fallacy is when some situation, often weather, is seen as reflecting a character’s emotional state. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/7 "2003-09-01T00:14:49Z")
First described by John Ruskin, the art critic, here: [http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/ruskinj/](http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/ruskinj/) "…the other error, that which the mind admits when affected strongly by emotion. Thus, for instance, in Alton Locke- They rowed her in across the rolling foam- The cruel, crawling foam. The foam is not cruel, neither does it crawl. The state of mind which attributes to it these characters of a living creature is one in which the reason is unhinged by grief. All violent feelings have the same effect. They produce in us a falseness in all our impressions of external things, which I would generally characterize as the ‘Pathetic Fallacy’. " ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/8 "2003-09-01T01:31:26Z")
Cool. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Shemem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de053/32.png) [@Shemem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shemem)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/9 "2003-09-01T06:02:36Z")
This is all quite interesting. I’ve never encountered the phrase “pathetic fallacy” before. Is there a particular term for a situation where the weather/setting is just completely _wrong_ for the situation? For example, it’s simply the most beautiful day seen all summer, and it also happens to be the worst day of the hero’s life? ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/10 "2003-09-01T07:49:32Z")
> [@](#): > > It was as if we were being rebuked for our discovery, and it was frightening. Nobody tells you about the pathetic fallacy until you’re in college … and even then I noticed that nobody but the total dorks completely believed it was a fallacy. Thanks, Mr. King, for telling us how to feel (it was frightening) rather than allowing us to possibly make the mistake of actually feeling it on our own and getting all wrong. And thanks for taking us out of the narrative moment so the protagonist can have a short philosophical conversation with us about literary tricks you learned in Composition 101 that you’re now pounding into our faces. I love you so much, Mr. King, that when I’m visualizing the scene you’re describing, I’m happy to visually see you pop in wearing a clown outfit waving at me and shrieking, “Look what I can do!” Such subtlety. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2003, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/11 "2003-09-01T19:23:05Z")
Actually, **moriah** , it wasn’t King at all who “popped in”. It was Gordon Lachance, the narator of the story and an author, recalling events from his youth. He described the effect of the storm on him and his pals. But your criticism is, itself, pretty darned entertaining. Clown outfit, indeed. 😉 This is Pop Fiction, kids. Entertainment. And I love it. Reading such fluff enhances my morning cappuccino. ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2003, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pathetic-fallacy/198745/12 "2003-09-02T05:02:11Z")
The pathetic fallacy isn’t a literary device, it’s a logical fallacy made sometimes in argument. It refers to the attribution of human motives to random or natural events. When an author does this intentionally in a work of literature, it’s called anthropomorphism, and whether or not it works depends upon the skill of the writer. If King had implied that the rain was a form of punishement in expository prose, it would be anthropomorphism. But in that passage, it’s the character in the story who is making the association in narrative recall, so it’s the pathetic fallacy. What King’s narrator was doing in that passage was saying something like, “Even though I know now that the rain wasn’t really related to the discovery of the body, that that doesn’t make logical sense, I cannot help but feel now, even as I did then, that the timing was planned, a message of some kind.”