The Americans thought they were so prepared for the Revolutionary War. They had guns. They had soldiers. They had patriotism; yet they were lacking one thing: “Common Sense”. Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” was America’s wake-up call that pushed them to win the war. It was his appeal to logos, best exemplified by the problem-solution structure of the pamphlet, that enabled Paine to express his call to action against England. Paine commences his essay with an exposure of England’s flaws, accompanied by a subtle appeal to logos. This choice of structure allows Paine to establish his position on the argument while at the same time lowering any colonist’s high perception of England. When discussing England’s complex constitution, he admits…show more content… The content here gets more specific, which forces him to fortify his appeal to appease his audience. This structure choice makes the author clarify the audience’s capabilities, and validate his call to action. One of Paine’s main points in his essay is that an island should not be governing a continent, and elaborates that an island “so distant from us, and so very ignorant of us; for if they cannot conquer us they cannot govern us”(Paine 12). The epistrophe of “us” reinforces the continent’s indestructibility. The words “so” and “cannot” modify the adjectives and verbs to emphasize England’s weakness and ineffectiveness to regulate the continent, and the further repetition of “us” makes the reader seem stronger in contrast to feeble England. Epistrophe appeal to logos because it creates parallelism through repetition that reflects on numerous applications of the same idea, which is a logical approach to acknowledge the usefulness of said idea. Paine’s epistrophe appealed to logos by further elaborating on that main idea of an island not being able to govern a continent. With this realization in mind, the people will not be as reluctant to fight Britain in a war from notable size difference; yet some of these people will still vouch for reconciliation. Paine acknowledges this and
