Thomas Paine of "Common Sense" Term Paper

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Paine's decision to write of high philosophical and political issues in common speech, and of used "graphic metaphors and his simple sentence structure [to] reflect a language understood at the time by common Americans," (Moss & Wilson, ed) has much the same purpose as a translation of the Bible from Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic into Latin, which is to say the need to initiate common people into profound truths.

Paine may not have been the greatest philosopher of his day, but he was certainly the greatest rhetorician. (it is a distinction which has been open to debate since the time of Socrates and the Sophists) the needs of rhetoric, as Aristotle himself has said, demand using emotion, sentiment, self-interest, and logic together with fine and comprehensible speech to persuade an audience. Both his synthesis of modern ideals and his simple straight forward manner aided him in fulfilling these demands:

Disavowing the complex neoclassical rhetoric of his day, Paine espoused instead a style that was forceful, direct, clear, and simple. Easily understood, his prose was carefully structured to move his audience to action. A master at the use of such rhetorical devices as parallelism, repetition, the apostrophe, the invective, the rhetorical question, the summary, and the ethical appeal, Paine was able, as one scholar has explained, to awaken 'the lukewarm, hesitating, and indifferent, and turn them in great numbers to the support of the cause.

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' " (Levernier)

In comparing and contrasting what various critics have said about Paine's body of work, and specifically about Common Sense itself, one can see how its major themes of equality of the masses and the need for revolution are perfectly embodied in a text which is at once revolutionary and textually aimed at the common people themselves. As Paine himself was quick to point out, "Of course, the Revolution would have occurred whether or not Paine had existed..." (Woodress), for it was made inevitable by the distance between America and England, the nature of their relationship, and any number of other forces, "but Common Sense did prepare people's minds for the break with England." (Woodress) in this success one sees the true evidence that Paine's method of common speech and common philosophy perfectly achieved his goal of creating a common cause......

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