Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine was a very articulate man that knew what he was talking about. He did careful research about everything that he ever wanted to discuss in his works, and he was considerate of the fact that emotions should not necessarily be put into some literary works, because it could easily interfere with the message that one is trying to get across, or even taint the whole work with a certain emotion, so the work would not be plausible any longer. He used many different strategies to prove to his audience that the point he was trying to get across was a legitimate point that needed to be brought to their attention so they would be able to make well-informed decisions about the actions that needed to be taken to give the colonists the safety, freedom, and happiness that they deserved. Paine had a number of strategies that he employed, and one of them was to say quite a bit of information, then back it up with facts that he discovered from all of his researching. For example, he at one point talks about how Britain should not really be called the mother country of America for a number of reasons, some of which are that not all of the citizens of America are from Britain (Paine). In fact, quite a number of them were from many other countries, such as France, Germany, Holland, Sweden, and other countries in Europe (Paine). Another reason that he talks about which proves that Britain should not really be called the mother country of America is that the King of England, William, was from France, so Paine says that France has as much right to be called the mother country of America as Britain does (Paine). Paine also talks about a number of other things, such as how monarchies are not a good way to rule a country, because in Britain, chaos was happening, and some of their older kings had set up different people to help them rule, when those people would all do what the king wanted (Paine). Often the monarchies would have total and absolute power, even though the constitutions that Britain had set up tried to keep the kings from doing so. The constitutions that Britain had did not always work as they imagined they would, and Thomas Paine was trying to prove in as many ways as he could that America should not be like Britain and needed to try separate from Britain (Paine). There were a great number of things that Thomas Paine tried to use in his literary works to persuade the rest of America to break from Britain (Paine). He used techniques like stating his opinions, but backing them all up by fact (Paine). He also tried to keep as emotion as he could out of it, because he understood how vital it was to keep his works emotion-free (Paine). He realized that emotion in his works made them become not plausible anymore, and he became very persuasive in his writing (Paine). His works eventually led to many people becoming fired up to separate from Britain and the beginning of the American Revolution (Paine).

Paine, Thomas. Common Sense. Philadelphia: W. and T. Bradford, 1791.