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Summary Of Thomas Paine The American Crisis

Decent Essays

Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis was written as a sixteen-pamphlet sequence during the Revolutionary War era. Through his writing, Paine expresses his feelings over Britain’s control over the colonies. Essentially, his purpose is to rouse the colonists and soldiers to rise up to take further action against Britain’s tyranny. Therefore, The American Crisis utilizes Paine’s and God’s credibility to convince readers to take action, appeals to their logic through analogies, and evokes emotional rage from the colonists against the British.

Thomas Paine’s own credibility and God’s credibility are emphasized in Paine’s essay in order to convince the readers to embrace his viewpoint on independence from Britain. Paine stated, “I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction…” This indicates …show more content…

Paine claims that “if a thief breaks into [his] house, burns and destroys [his] property, and kills or threatens to kill [him], or those that are in it, and to “bind [him] in all cases whatsoever,” to his absolute will, is [he] to suffer it?” Paine is clearly comparing Britain’s king to a thief because the king is depriving the colonists of their liberty. This analogy and rhetorical question affirms, once again, that colonists need to stand up against British rule because like with a thief, the people would not stand by and let Britain’s king commit a crime against them. Also, when Paine mentions that Britain would “bind him in all cases whatsoever,” he implies that under Britain’s rule they would be like slaves. Just like slaves are bonded to their masters, the colonists would be ultimately chained to British rule. Thus, the notion of becoming like slaves would evoke rage among the colonists and

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