Thomas Paine: Common Sense

Audience

Common Sense was written with an enormous audience in mind: the entire population of North America. By virtue of his life experience, Paine was attuned to the inclinations and desires of both the upper and lower classes, and his pamphlet proved successful largely because of his intent and ability to communicate with the masses. While the tone may seem excessively academic to the modern reader, elongated grammatical constructions were standard in the eighteenth century; thus, in its time, Common Sense was considered exceptionally accessible.

With regard to content, Paine catered to common men in part by focusing more on ideas and general concepts than on legislative or political specifics. When he offers formulations regarding the possible shape of the new American government, he does so vaguely and briefly so as not to alienate the less educated with technicalities. Many of his references were to the Bible, with which most any literate person would have been familiar in that era. Further, Thomas Wendel notes, “Paine's genius lies in his earthy metaphors and in the rapier thrust of his epigrammatic style, a style that at times rises to apostrophic grandeur” (p. 20). Indeed, in Common Sense, Paine makes frequent references to nature and the natural order, strengthening the connections that common men, many of whom were farmers, would have felt with his ideas. Overall, forgoing scholarly objectivity, Paine argues quite vehemently that America had no reasonable course to follow but that which would bring about immediate separation from Great Britain.