Important Literary Techniques

There are many different writing techniques used by the authors of the Revolutionary War time period but the most important ones are rhetorical question, parallelism, and alliteration.

Rhetorical question is a question asked just to make the reader think or to make a statement, but is not expected to receive an answer in return. One of the authors during this time period that used rhetorical question very effectively was Patrick Henry. He especially did so in his speech in the Virginia Convention. One of his quotes is “Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who having eyes see not, and having ears hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and to provide for it.”. In this quote the point that Henry is trying to get across is that the people of America are being blind, but he does not wish to be blind. Henry wants to know the blunt truth about everything that’s going on. Another author during this time period that used rhetorical question was Thomas Paine. He used it a lot in his pamphlet Common Sense. In one instance he said “Should the government of America return again into the hands of Britain, the tottering situation of things will be a temptation for some desperate adventurer to try his fortune; and in such a case, what relief can Britain give?”. What Paine is getting the reader to think about is if America should be under British rule or have its own rules. He is also asking what good it would do to be under British rule since that is the whole reason the Puritans left Britain. This literary technique is a very efficient way of grabbing the reader’s attention, but there are also a few other techniques that work just as well.

Parallelism is when an author is very repetitive in the way they are getting their message across. One author that used this very well was Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. He uses parallelism all throughout this document, but he also used it in one of the most important sentences in the whole document. This sentence explains humankind’s nature right. Jefferson said “We hold these truths to be self-evident:- that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”. The literary technique is used when Jefferson put “life” and “liberty” beside each other. An additional author that used this technique was Benjamin Franklin. He wrote an autobiography and used a large amount of parallelism