Summary Of Revolutionary Character By Gordon Wood
The American people have always looked upon their founders with constantly shifting perspectives. First, they are monuments of men – true American heroes. Then, they are people just like us, with flaws and emotions and contradictions just like us. Finally, they are dehumanized with claims of them being racist, sexist, elitist, and more. Today, these views are rather intermixed and at odds within the United States. It is reasonable to believe that the American people simply do not know what to think because the issues and circumstances that surrounded these “revolutionary characters” are so far removed from the 21st century United States. In Gordon Wood’s Revolutionary Characters, Wood claims that with a greater understanding of the circumstances
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Some prominent examples of this lie in the Benjamin Franklin chapter as well as the George Washington chapter. Wood ventures so much as to say that Franklin “bristled at the ‘insolence, contempt, and abuse’ that English officials heaped upon the colonists” and he felt “himself caught in a widening gulf he tried to bridge” (81). While it is evident that the author is trying to appeal to a broader audience by introducing pathos and a narrative writing style to the book (as opposed to the previously expository writing style), it is not proper for the purpose of the book. These conjectures are unsupported by any text or other evidence, and is only adding dramatism to a book that is meant to be factual and informative. Moreover, when Wood shifts from fact-based passages to more dramatic passages, a natural tonal shift occurs with the shift from logos/ethos to pathos. In literature, tonal shifts are used to emphasize points or ideas within a passage, so the problem arises here where the wrong thing is being inherently emphasized. The dramatic, unsubstantiated speculations that don’t support the thesis of the book at all are being emphasized over the actual evidence being presented by Wood. Therefore, this botched attempt to appeal to a broader audience has only condemned the book to becoming more disjointed and further blurring the message of Revolutionary
Some prominent examples of this lie in the Benjamin Franklin chapter as well as the George Washington chapter. Wood ventures so much as to say that Franklin “bristled at the ‘insolence, contempt, and abuse’ that English officials heaped upon the colonists” and he felt “himself caught in a widening gulf he tried to bridge” (81). While it is evident that the author is trying to appeal to a broader audience by introducing pathos and a narrative writing style to the book (as opposed to the previously expository writing style), it is not proper for the purpose of the book. These conjectures are unsupported by any text or other evidence, and is only adding dramatism to a book that is meant to be factual and informative. Moreover, when Wood shifts from fact-based passages to more dramatic passages, a natural tonal shift occurs with the shift from logos/ethos to pathos. In literature, tonal shifts are used to emphasize points or ideas within a passage, so the problem arises here where the wrong thing is being inherently emphasized. The dramatic, unsubstantiated speculations that don’t support the thesis of the book at all are being emphasized over the actual evidence being presented by Wood. Therefore, this botched attempt to appeal to a broader audience has only condemned the book to becoming more disjointed and further blurring the message of Revolutionary