Mr.Brown
English 10H
November 6, 2013
Revolutionary Works of Literature
Authors write for a purpose, for something that they believe in. Patrick Henry’s Speech to the Second Convention and Thomas Paine’s The Crisis No. 1 both have similar goals and purposes. Patrick Henry was a lawyer and a great public speaker. His goal was to get the colonists to be passionate about the revolutionary war. He was a symbol for the struggle of liberty which shows in this speech. Henry was so passionate about his cause and he makes it obvious through this speech. He shows a sense of urgency and seriousness. The most famous line from his speech is the ending line, “Give me liberty or give me death!” Henry is exaggerating in that sentence but he does that to get the point across and motivate others. Paine says, “…we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight!” because he realizes there is no other way. Britain has ignored all of the colonists’ other attempts to get freedom so they resort to war. Thomas Paine wrote 16 essays called Common Sense, and one of the most important ones was The Crisis No. 1. It was so important and influential that George Washington read it to his troops to motivate them when their morale was low. In the sentence, “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country,” Paine criticizes the “summer soldier” and the “sunshine patriot” who are only supportive of their country in the good times and fail to support in the hard times. Paine’s goal is to try and get everyone to join the cause, the cause being the revolutionary war. He believes that Britain is enslaving the colonists, so he is very serious and urgent in this pamphlet. In this quote “…the king of Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker…” Paine refers to the King of Britain as these things to stress how badly he is treating the colonists. Thomas Paine and Patrick Henry are both excellent examples of revolutionaries. They both go to great extents to achieve their goals and they were both successful. Their actions were greatly influenced by their goals which you see in The Crisis No. 1 and the Speech to the Second Virginia Convention.
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