Asked by josean
Read and annotate the Introduction and Chapter 1 from Thomas Paine's "Common Sense".
Find the following Non-Fiction Notice and Notes:
1. Word Gaps- Words you don't know. (Find at least 5 in this section and highlight it/underline the word off to the side with the definition)
2. Contrast & Contradictions- What do you think should happen versus the opposite of what actually happens. (Think of a Superhero NOT saving someone in a crisis)
3. Extreme/Absolute Language- The author uses extreme, dramatized, fear mongering, and etc language to provide a point. (This of something that seems overly dramatic. Why would they say it like that?)
All Answers 1
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Below are concise annotations of the Introduction and Chapter 1 of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776), followed by the three kinds of nonfiction reading notes you asked for.
Short overall summary
- Introduction: Paine opens by separating “society” from “government,” arguing society is a blessing while government is a necessary evil that exists because of human faults. He criticizes monarchy and hereditary succession, and urges the American colonies to consider independence as the rational response to British rule.
- Chapter 1 (“Of the Origin and Design of Government in General”): Paine sets out general political theory: government’s purpose is protection and the regulation of social conflicts; government arises from human wickedness (not from virtue), and should be judged by its usefulness. He attacks hereditary rule as an illegitimate and absurd foundation for government.
Selected annotated passages (short quotations + note)
1) “Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them.”
- Note: Paine draws an important conceptual line: society = voluntary relationships and mutual benefit; government = institutions created to manage conflicts. He wants readers to prefer society and view government skeptically.
2) “Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness.”
- Note: A key thesis sentence. Paine claims government is a response to human faults (selfishness, conflict), not an ideal institution we’d need if people were perfectly virtuous. He uses this to justify a minimalist, practical view of government.
3) “Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise.”
- Note: Dramatic image: government (esp. monarchy) is the sign that innocence is gone. He’s further criticizing monarchy as corrupting and morally degenerative.
4) Argument against hereditary succession (summary): Paine calls hereditary rule absurd and dangerous—placing infants and incompetents into power, and assuming merit in birth.
- Note: He’s attacking the legitimacy of kingship based on bloodline. This is a central rhetorical weapon to persuade colonists that monarchy is neither natural nor just.
5) “The smallest spot of earth, with reasonable inhabitants, may with propriety be called a nation.”
- Note: He refutes the idea that the American colonies are too small/young to be independent; nationality derives from people, not size or age of an empire.
Non-Fiction Notice & Notes
1) Word Gaps — five words and definitions (from the Introduction & Ch.1 context)
- Usurpation (usurp): unlawful seizure or exercise of power. Paine uses it to describe how rulers take authority not legitimately theirs.
- Vicissitude(s): changes or variations occurring in the course of something (often changes of fortune or circumstances). Paine uses similar terms when discussing how governments rise/fall.
- Antipathy: a strong feeling of dislike or aversion. Paine refers to the natural “antipathies” between nations/peoples or between people and rulers.
- Conciliate (conciliatory): to make friendly or reconcile; to gain by pleasing acts. Paine discusses attempts at conciliation with Britain and why they fail.
- Hereditary: passed down by inheritance (usually by blood). Paine attacks hereditary succession as a principle for government.
(If you want, I can mark the precise line-numbered locations or quote the exact sentences these appear in.)
2) Contrast & Contradictions — examples of expectations vs. reality in the text
- Expectation: Government exists to protect and improve society.
Reality Paine points out: Government often creates oppression and is an instrument of rulers’ ambition (it exists because of “wickedness,” not to perfect society).
- Expectation: Kings and hereditary rulers are fit and rightful governors.
Reality: Paine argues hereditary succession installs unfit, accidental rulers (children, foreigners, incompetents), undermining the idea of legitimate authority.
- Expectation: Britain, as the mother country, will fairly govern and protect its colonies.
Reality: Paine contends Britain burdens and restricts the colonies, treating them as subordinate and exploiting them, so reconciliation is unlikely.
- Expectation: The colonies are too weak or too small for independence.
Reality: Paine says any people with reason and property can be a nation; the colonies are capable of self-government.
3) Extreme / Absolute Language — examples and why Paine uses it
- Example: “Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence.” (very strong, moralizing claim)
Why: To paint government—especially monarchical government—as morally corrupting, making readers feel they’ve already lost a natural good and must act to regain it.
- Example: Paine’s repeated labeling of monarchy/hereditary succession as “absurd,” “unnatural,” and a “scandal.”
Why: He uses absolute terms to delegitimize the institution quickly and to rally emotional as well as rational opposition—this is persuasive urgency aimed at colonists who may be uncertain.
- Example: Calling British rulers rapacious or tyrannical (frequent in the pamphlet).
Why: To create alarm and moral clarity: if Britain is tyrannical, moderate solutions are inadequate and independence becomes a necessary remedy.
Why Paine uses dramatic language (brief)
- To persuade a broad audience quickly: vivid, absolute phrases are memorable and mobilize emotion.
- To close moral ambiguity: extreme language reduces doubt about the rightness of independence.
- To create urgency and justify radical action (secession/ revolution) by portraying the existing order as intolerable.
If you want, I can:
- Mark more specific line-by-line annotations through the full text of the Introduction and Chapter 1.
- Provide a glossary mapping every potentially unfamiliar term from these sections to plain-English definitions.
- Highlight further contrast/contradiction passages with direct quotes and short analyses.
Short overall summary
- Introduction: Paine opens by separating “society” from “government,” arguing society is a blessing while government is a necessary evil that exists because of human faults. He criticizes monarchy and hereditary succession, and urges the American colonies to consider independence as the rational response to British rule.
- Chapter 1 (“Of the Origin and Design of Government in General”): Paine sets out general political theory: government’s purpose is protection and the regulation of social conflicts; government arises from human wickedness (not from virtue), and should be judged by its usefulness. He attacks hereditary rule as an illegitimate and absurd foundation for government.
Selected annotated passages (short quotations + note)
1) “Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them.”
- Note: Paine draws an important conceptual line: society = voluntary relationships and mutual benefit; government = institutions created to manage conflicts. He wants readers to prefer society and view government skeptically.
2) “Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness.”
- Note: A key thesis sentence. Paine claims government is a response to human faults (selfishness, conflict), not an ideal institution we’d need if people were perfectly virtuous. He uses this to justify a minimalist, practical view of government.
3) “Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built upon the ruins of the bowers of paradise.”
- Note: Dramatic image: government (esp. monarchy) is the sign that innocence is gone. He’s further criticizing monarchy as corrupting and morally degenerative.
4) Argument against hereditary succession (summary): Paine calls hereditary rule absurd and dangerous—placing infants and incompetents into power, and assuming merit in birth.
- Note: He’s attacking the legitimacy of kingship based on bloodline. This is a central rhetorical weapon to persuade colonists that monarchy is neither natural nor just.
5) “The smallest spot of earth, with reasonable inhabitants, may with propriety be called a nation.”
- Note: He refutes the idea that the American colonies are too small/young to be independent; nationality derives from people, not size or age of an empire.
Non-Fiction Notice & Notes
1) Word Gaps — five words and definitions (from the Introduction & Ch.1 context)
- Usurpation (usurp): unlawful seizure or exercise of power. Paine uses it to describe how rulers take authority not legitimately theirs.
- Vicissitude(s): changes or variations occurring in the course of something (often changes of fortune or circumstances). Paine uses similar terms when discussing how governments rise/fall.
- Antipathy: a strong feeling of dislike or aversion. Paine refers to the natural “antipathies” between nations/peoples or between people and rulers.
- Conciliate (conciliatory): to make friendly or reconcile; to gain by pleasing acts. Paine discusses attempts at conciliation with Britain and why they fail.
- Hereditary: passed down by inheritance (usually by blood). Paine attacks hereditary succession as a principle for government.
(If you want, I can mark the precise line-numbered locations or quote the exact sentences these appear in.)
2) Contrast & Contradictions — examples of expectations vs. reality in the text
- Expectation: Government exists to protect and improve society.
Reality Paine points out: Government often creates oppression and is an instrument of rulers’ ambition (it exists because of “wickedness,” not to perfect society).
- Expectation: Kings and hereditary rulers are fit and rightful governors.
Reality: Paine argues hereditary succession installs unfit, accidental rulers (children, foreigners, incompetents), undermining the idea of legitimate authority.
- Expectation: Britain, as the mother country, will fairly govern and protect its colonies.
Reality: Paine contends Britain burdens and restricts the colonies, treating them as subordinate and exploiting them, so reconciliation is unlikely.
- Expectation: The colonies are too weak or too small for independence.
Reality: Paine says any people with reason and property can be a nation; the colonies are capable of self-government.
3) Extreme / Absolute Language — examples and why Paine uses it
- Example: “Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence.” (very strong, moralizing claim)
Why: To paint government—especially monarchical government—as morally corrupting, making readers feel they’ve already lost a natural good and must act to regain it.
- Example: Paine’s repeated labeling of monarchy/hereditary succession as “absurd,” “unnatural,” and a “scandal.”
Why: He uses absolute terms to delegitimize the institution quickly and to rally emotional as well as rational opposition—this is persuasive urgency aimed at colonists who may be uncertain.
- Example: Calling British rulers rapacious or tyrannical (frequent in the pamphlet).
Why: To create alarm and moral clarity: if Britain is tyrannical, moderate solutions are inadequate and independence becomes a necessary remedy.
Why Paine uses dramatic language (brief)
- To persuade a broad audience quickly: vivid, absolute phrases are memorable and mobilize emotion.
- To close moral ambiguity: extreme language reduces doubt about the rightness of independence.
- To create urgency and justify radical action (secession/ revolution) by portraying the existing order as intolerable.
If you want, I can:
- Mark more specific line-by-line annotations through the full text of the Introduction and Chapter 1.
- Provide a glossary mapping every potentially unfamiliar term from these sections to plain-English definitions.
- Highlight further contrast/contradiction passages with direct quotes and short analyses.
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