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Character Role Analysis

Patriots and Pacifists

For Thomas Paine, there are two basic types of Americans: the ones who are willing to fight for freedom (yay!) and the ones who aren't (boo!).

This pamphlet is written with the sole purpose of getting more people on board with America's war for independence, so Paine loses no time talking about why a pro-war patriot is a superior type of human being to the cowardly pacifist. This way of looking at Americans has been a powerful part of American thinking ever since Paine's time.

Just research any war in American history and you'll find antiwar thinkers as being criticized as cowardly and unpatriotic.