Letter To Paine Rhetorical Analysis

Scientist, politician and inventor Benjamin Franklin, and politician and philosopher Thomas Paine collaborated during the 18th century to give each other feedback on their writings. This letter in particular is a response from Franklin to one of Paine’s essays advocating a providential God. We can find in this letter, that Franklin was not very fond of the essay Paine proposed to him. He conveys advice to Paine by saying that his disbelief in a providential God makes no sense and is not logical. Franklins response contains metaphors, rhetorical strategies, and appeals throughout his letter to make his message back to Paine more effective, in hopes of discouraging him to publish his writing.
In the first paragraph of Franklin’s response, he begins by reasoning with

Paine. He explains to Paine that this is going to be extremely ineffective to his audience because the majority of people believe in God. Franklin uses a metaphor to describe what Paine is doing to himself by telling others there is no providential God, “He that spits against the wind, spits in his own face.” He presents the people as the wind, and spit as his essay. Franklin informs him that since the majority of people believe in God, and he is speaking on the behalf of a nonbeliever so he is just asking for controversy, and will infuriate people if he were to publish it. Another metaphor that was used in the last paragraph was, “I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person.” According to Franklin, the tiger exemplifies Paine’s writings. Tiger’s are frightening, and if not chained up can cause chaos, just as his writing is going to. Franklin uses metaphors to make it more clear to Paine of what he is doing to himself if he decides to publish this piece of writing.
Throughout the entire response, Franklin appeals to all of the appeals; ethos, pathos and logos.

Logos is one of the most significant appeal used because it makes his response more reasonable and logical. He does this by explaining to Paine that it only makes sense to believe in a God, and by telling him that if he released this exert to the public he would be look down upon. He especially used logic in his third paragraph whenever he tries to convince Paine that it is only logical for him not to release this text because all it is going to do is cause issues throughout society, and make everyone target him. He says, “…burn this piece before it is seen by any other person; whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification by the enemies it may raise against you.” He then follows this statement with a rhetorical question asking, “If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it?” This is one of the most effective logical appeals Franklin uses in his response. Men sin daily, and are very rebellious with God in the picture, therefore it will only decline without God. He is implying that Paine’s speech is persuading people to be in disorder and to rebel against all

authority.
While Franklin uses mostly logic, he also incorporates an appeal to ethos into his letter to make it the reasoning more reliable. Considering Franklin was one of our founding fathers, came up with the whole concept of a lightbulb, and further researched electricity, he was a very intelligent man, and a credible source. In the very last paragraph of his letters, Franklin presents his opinion on Paine’s essay encouraging Paine to “burn this piece before it is seen by any other person; whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification by the enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a good deal of regret and repentance.” Franklin does not directly come out to say that he is a scientist, a politician, and an inventor but we know this from basic background knowledge. By Franklin stating his opinion to Paine, it gives an different outlook on his views, and since Franklin is such a reliable, intelligent man his opinion is obviously creditable, and should be taken into account.
Emotion is also an effective appeal used in Franklin’s response to Paine. Pathos is an appeal that allows the reader to connect emotionally with the writer. Franklin uses this specific technique to convince Paine how wrongful it would be for him to publish this. Franklin uses this appeal explicitly in the second paragraph when he talks about how even though Paine the capacity to maintain good morals, and resist the temptation without having a God, does not mean that all people can do the same thing. Paine was a very intelligent guy, but not all people can amount to his levels without guidance, and morals to live by.
We find it evident that through the use of all the appeals, and strategies used throughout Franklin’s response to Paine’s manuscript discouraging an providential God, that it was extremely effective. But Paine found his response ineffective, and instead taunting so he continued on to publish his manuscript.