?Success: Earned or Given? Many wealthy Americans believe that the millions of people who don’t reach their definition of success simply aren’t trying hard enough. Kristof emphasizes in his New York Times article, ‘Is a Hard Life Inherited?’ the advantage that those same wealthy Americans have over the people they judge because they were born into better families. A family that, “loved them, read stories to them, and nurtured them with Little League sports, library cards and music lessons” (1). He makes his beliefs clear when he chooses to focus on the topic of the working poor of America, highlighting the experiences of his hometown friend, Rick Goff. Goff is a middle-aged man with a crushed hand and an arrest record who struggles to find steady work. The generations of his family to follow him have suffered similar travails, with his daughter facing a drug addiction, his son in jail, and a granddaughter whose parents are incapable of caring for her. Kristof’s claim is that if we all had empathy for poor, disadvantaged Americans, we could make progress addressing the problem. Kristof begins his argument with ethos, or ethical appeal, by including a description of his hometown, Yamhill, Oregon, that leads the readers to believe he is more credible because they see him as someone who understands what others are suffering through. When Kristof describes Yamhill as, “a window into the national crisis facing working-class men,” it portrays him as someone who knows firsthand how a poor upbringing can impact your chances of success. He follows quickly with anecdotes and quotes from Rick Goff about Goff’s childhood and family that appeal to the reader’s emotions, otherwise known as pathos. By stating that Rick “grew up in a ramshackle home in a mire of disadvantage” Kristof plays with the reader’s emotions hoping they will begin to empathize with him (1). It isn’t until later in the article that the reader finds out about the poor choices that Rick made that harmed his chances of success. His many arrests, smoking and drinking problems, and the knowledge that he didn�