Personification In The American Crisis

Thomas Paine, author of The American Crisis, addresses the common people with little control over their community and who are frightened for the war; the colonist men know that they are risking their land and family by going to war. Paine writes this pamphlet to lift the spirits of the colonists during the time of the Revolution. Paine identifies the impact of individual faults versus group wrongdoings to demonstrate how society punishes some and pardons others. This claim ultimately enforces the central claim that the colonists need to fight, even when the larger group is stronger and more resilient, in order to become independent and free.
Paine uses personification to inform the audi ence that the bad can never die out, “for though the