Persuasion Point Of View

Thomas Paine and Mark Twain are two men who both wrote essays on two very different wars. Thomas Paine was the author of "These are the Times that Try Men"s Souls" which discusses the Revolutionary War between America and the Great Britain and Mark Twain wrote the essay "The War Prayer" which was based on the Philippine- American War. After carefully analyzing both essays, I found that Thomas Paine makes the strongest argument overall compared to Mark Twain. Both writers effectively persuade their readers using careful word choice, themes, proper organization, and tone, but in very different ways from one another.
After carefully examining Thomas Paine"s essay, "These Are the Times that Try Men"s Souls", I noticed a major theme he uses to move his audience to support his side of the War. He uses the theme of God to persuade his audiences to his side, the Patriots. For example, "I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up to Heaven for help against us…" (Paine 464) In this quote he gives the reader the impressions that God is on their side and not on Britain"s because he views them as evil. If you take a look at his word choice you will notice this throughout the text. He uses words like murderer, highwayman, and housebreaker to describe Britain and never says anything positive
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about them. If you were to take a look to how the essay was organized you will notice that he starts off describing the seriousness of the situation and how the lives of the colonist are being constrained because of Britain. He then gives his opinion about what Britain has done and how the colonist"s should not take this harassment. He does go over a little overboard when he describes the conditions as "slave like" and when he chooses to refer to himself as a "whore of his soul" if he were to surrender to the British. Overall the tone of his essay was serious because he felt that what the British were doing to his country was unfair.
I felt that this essay was...