Thomas Paine was one of United States’ greatest freedom fighters, using his command of the English language in his pamphlet Common Sense as a literary weapon in the goal of defeating Great Britain, and overthrowing her as America’s overseer. His aim was the use of language to pursue a country already embroiled in war, to come together in the cause to fight oppression.
Common Sense played an important part in the American Revolution, in its use of rhetoric, to demonize Great Britain, and paint her as a brute, a monster, and a parasite among other things. Thomas Paine used this ability for rhetoric and language to create one of the world’s most powerful and effective pieces of propaganda through the use of various themes. This paper will provide an in-depth analysis of Paine’s rhetoric in Common Sense by examining factors such as the historical time-period, audience psychology, and rhetorical appeals, and will deliver a thorough discussion of the different language rhetoric devices in the book.
According to the biographical article titled “Revolutionary Characters” on Museum of the American Revolution website, Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, England, in 1737, to a Quaker father and an Anglican mother. Paine’s formal education was meagre, just enough to enable him to master reading, writing, and arithmetic, and he soon failed out of school by the age of 12 (Foner ) At the age of 13, he began working with his father as stay maker in Thetford, a shipbuilding town. He later worked as an officer of the excise. He did not excel at this job, nor at any other early job, and his life in England was, in fact, marked by repeated failures.
127 our experts are availableright now
To compound his professional hardships, around 1760, Paine’s wife and child both died in childbirth, and his business, that of making stay ropes, went under. In the summer of 1772, Paine published The Case of the Officers of Excise, a 21-page pamphlet in defense of higher pay for excise officers. It was his first political work, and he spent that winter in London, handing out the 4,000 copies of the article to members of Parliament and other citizens. In spring of 1774, Paine was fired from the excise office, and began to see his outlook as bleak. Luckily, he soon met Benjamin Franklin, who advised him to move to America and provided him with letters of introduction to the newly formed nation (“Revolutionary Characters”).
Paine arrived in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774, starting over as a publicist. He first published his African Slavery in America, in the spring of 1775, criticizing slavery in America as being unjust and inhumane (“Common Sense”). At that time, he also had become co-editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. On arriving in Philadelphia, Paine had sensed the rise of tension, and the spirit of rebellion, that had steadily mounted in the Colonies after the Boston Tea-party and when the fightings had started, in April 1775, with the battles of Lexington and Concord.
In Paine’s view the colonists had all the right to revolt against a government that imposed taxes on them but which did not give them the right of representation in the Parliament at Westminster. But he went even further. For him, there was no reason for the Colonies to stay dependent on England. On January 10, 1776, Paine formulated his ideas on American independence in his pamphlet Common Sense. Although little used today, pamphlets were an important medium for the spread of ideas in the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries.
Even though it was originally published anonymously, Common Sense advocated independence for the American colonies from Britain and is considered one of the most influential pamphlets in American history. Credited with uniting average citizens and political leaders behind the idea of independence, Common Sense played a remarkable role in transforming a colonial squabble into the American Revolution. At the time when Paine wrote Common Sense, most colonists considered themselves to be aggrieved Britons.
Paine fundamentally changed the tenor of colonists’ argument with the crown when he wrote the following, “Europe, and not England, is the parent country of America. This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither they have fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home pursues their descendants still.” (Paine 29) This use of logic in arguing how cruel England can be, played on both the emotions and the minds of the audience while trying to convince them
Paine wrote Common Sense in an unadorned style, forgoing philosophical ponderings and Latin terms, and relying instead on biblical references to speak to the common man, as would a sermon. Such as when Paine explains that in the Book of Judges, how Gideon refuses the Israelites’ offer of their crown after his great military victory (Judges 8, King James Version) (Paine 16). Within just a few months, the piece sold more than 500,000 copies (“Common Sense”). Common Sense presents as its chief option a distinctly American political identity and, more so than any other single publication, paved the way for the Declaration of Independence, which was unanimously ratified on July 4, 1776.
After his 47-page pamphlet powerfully influencing American opinion, Paine went on to serve in the U.S. Army and to work for the Committee of Foreign Affairs before returning to Europe in 1787. Back in England, he continued writing pamphlets in support of revolution. He released The Rights of Man, supporting the French Revolution in 1791-92, in answer to Edmund Burke’s famous Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). His sentiments were highly unpopular with the still-monarchal British government, so he fled to France, where he was later arrested for his political opinions. He returned to the United States in 1802 and died in New York in 1809. (“Relvolutionary Characters”)
After having an overview over the historical background of Common Sense, It is important to point out that one key element evident in Paine’s writing is that he understood the psychology of his audience, which is essential to the art of persuasion. Paine was an author who knew many things about his various audiences, and certainly used this to his advantage when structuring his profound arguments in Common Sense. (Ferguson 471) The pamphlet is written to “The Inhabitants of America” (Paine 34), which consisted of a wide variety of people across numerous backgrounds, ethnicities, backgrounds, beliefs, and intellect.
Paine’s ability to connect with such a diverse populace is truly remarkable; his ability to unite them toward a common cause even more amazing. In its simplest terms, Common Sense was written by a common man for the common man. “It is necessary to be bold,” wrote Paine years later-on his rhetorical power. “Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think” (Clark 317). Readers should keep this idea front and center as they study Common Sense.
As an experienced essayist and a recent English immigrant with his own deep resentments against Britain, Paine was the right man at the right time to galvanize public opinion. He “understood better than anyone else in America,” explains literary scholar Robert Ferguson, “that ‘style and manner of thinking’ might dictate the difficult shift from loyalty to rebellion” (468). Before Paine, the language of political essays had been moderate. Educated men wrote civilly for publication and kept their fury for private letters and diaries. Then came Paine, cursing Britain as an “open enemy” (Paine 31), denouncing George III as the “Royal Brute of Britian” (45), and damning reconciliation as “truly farcical” (31) and “a fallacious dream” (28).
Paine knew what he was doing: the pen was his weapon, and words his ammunition. He argued with ideas while convincing with raw emotion. “The point to remember,” writes Ferguson, “is that Paine’s natural and intended audience is the American mob. He uses anger, the natural emotion of the mob, to let the most active groups find themselves in the general will of a republican citizenry” (471). With this knowledge of his target audiences’ psychological factors, Paine was able to gain the trust of his fellow colonists, which required a big leap of faith by many who knew that their freedom, and perhaps their very livelihood, was on the line. “We are already greater than the King wishes us to be…,” says Paine (25). To Paine, this sort of inspiration and encouragement was crucial to unifying the people toward independence, and this assertion clearly demonstrates the faith that Paine had in his colonial audience, for without their support, Common Sense would not have been nearly as influential.
When it comes to discuss the rhetorical appeals of Paine’s common sense, logos is presented in the title right away. The use of the title “Common Sense” infers that his ideas are the result of logic and reason, coming from basic and universally known facts, known to the majority of sane, educated people. Furthermore, Paine introduces his argument by notifying the reader of his simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense to present his ethos in the argument. He appeals to the reader to put aside “prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves,” giving the reader the choice to listen to his argument at a time when the king of England only offered subjugation (Paine 26). It is by appealing to the intellect and reason of the common man that Paine asserts separation from Great Britain is common sense.
Common Sense is both a cognitive and emotional appeal. It is a call to both the head and the heart; with every intelligent, political argument, Paine fortifies his stance with intense language, emotional tone, or fiery narrative. One main rhetorical theme prevalent throughout Common Sense is the author’s use of religious sentiments and references to provide evidence for his claims. Paine’s understanding of his audience’s devout, and diverse, religious beliefs, coupled with his extensive knowledge of the Bible, allowed him to reach out and deeply influence the minds and souls of many a God-fearing colonist. “That the almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchial government is true, or the scripture false,” states Paine, who goes on to say, “…that it is the will of the almighty that there should be diversity of religious opinions among us” (Paine 12,37).
Tom Paine’s personality and experiences also go a long way when attempting to dissect his ethical mechanisms in Common Sense. Growing up, Paine was disillusioned by the concept of monarchial governance and aristocracy, and some cite that this hostility toward hereditary structures may be a result of the dysfunctional relationship he had with his father. Quickly made apparent in Common Sense is the idea that “Paine was a person who delighted in the destruction of tyrants” (Jordan 304). As a person, Tom Paine maintained a sincere disposition; he was a man of integrity, creativity, courage, charisma, and passion. These communicator attributes allowed him to gain much credibility and fame through his writing, though this rise to prominence came with time.
The first edition of Common Sense was published anonymously, which displayed Paine’s humility in that he strove for the dissemination of the truth, not the acquisition of authority or social attractiveness. Paine’s wide array of experiences gave him many comparative frames of reference and the ability to understand current events on many different levels of thought (Ferguson 477). Ultimately, Paine was a common man who could relate to the light of the King’s restless subjects.
Paine’s rhetoric in Common Sense also extends into the influential, realm of language, phraseology, and literary devices. Throughout Common Sense, Paine relies on his skill as a storyteller to relate more personally with the audience, utilizing emotionally-laden words, stark imagery, strong phrasing, and an urgent tone to present his persuasive arguments. This “common language, easy alliteration, balanced phraseology, and verbal antithesis” allowed Paine to develop a “closer association with the common people” (Ferguson 488).
Paine’s use of metaphorical language is made very apparent throughout his pinnacle work, and serves to provide a new meaning to his logical arguments and create a different, more attentive reality for his audience through eloquent analogies and symbolism. He often uses familial terms in these metaphors, comparing Britain to the “parent country,” and Americans to the “children” of this New World. In one of these metaphors Paine says of Britain, “Even brutes do not devour their young; nor savages make war upon their families…” (Paine 19).
Nonetheless, when asking what made Common Sense so esteemed and “enlightening,” some argue that Common Sense said nothing new, that it simply put the call-to-war in fiery street language that rallied the common people. But this trivializes Paine’s accomplishment. He did have a new message in Common Sense: an ultimatum. Give up reconciliation now, or forever lose the chance for independence. If the Americans fail to act, they would have been considered self-deceiving cowards condemning their children to tyranny and cheating the world of a beacon of liberty. Paine divided Common Sense into four sections with deceptively mundane titles, mimicking the erudite political pamphlets of the day. But his essay did not offer the same old treatise on British heritage and American rights. In his introduction and four sections, he was able to ascend from a simple introduction of facts to a straight forward request of declaration of independence.
To this day, Paine’s influential words in Common Sense reverberate throughout this great nation; America perhaps would not be so united if it weren’t for this remarkable piece of revolutionary rhetoric published by the anonymous Paine in early 1776. Paine’s ability to induce this powerful change in the attitudes and behavior of his audience and ultimately inspire separation from the British crown truly makes him one of the greatest persuaders of all time. Tom Paine’s legacy lives on, as “The rhetorical patterns initiated in Common Sense have become intrinsic to American political speech, and they are now permanently embedded in the expressions of identity on which this culture depends” (Ferguson 467).
Paine’s urgent call for a Declaration of Independence became a reality on July 4, 1776, when the founding fathers of the American colonies issued outright separation from British tyranny by declaring a Revolutionary War which allowed for Paine’s sentiments to be fulfilled; there was no looking back from that point forth. Thomas Paine, a founding father in his own right, had successfully influenced the formation of the United States of America through one piece of writing that meant all things to all people.
Works Cited
- “Common Sense.” Bill of Right Institute Website. Biography. www.billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/primary-source documents/common-sense/. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017.
- Clark, Henry H. “Thomas Paine’s Theories of Rhetoric,” Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 28, 1933, pp. 287-317.
- Ferguson, Robert. “The Commonalities of Common Sense.” The William and Mary Quarterly. Third Series. Vol. 57, No. 3, July 2000, pp. 465-504.
- Foner, Philip S. “Thomas Paine, British-American Author.” Encyclopaedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Paine. Accessed 10 Apr. 2017
- Jordan, Winthrop. “Familial Politics: Thomas Paine and the Killing of the King.” The Journal of American History. Vol. 60, No. 2, Sept. 1973, pp. 294-308.
- Paine, Thomas. Common Sense and The American Crisis I. Penguin Classics, 2015. “Revolutionary Characters.” Museum of the American Revolution website. Biography. www.amrevmuseum.org/read-the-revolution/biography/revolutionary-characters. Accessed 26 Mar. 2017.
