Reflection Blog: The Crisis No. 1

As I was reading "The Crisis No. 1" I found myself being very confused. The story switches from facts to opinions all the time and I found the story a little hard to follow. "The Crisis No. 1" begins by talking about new settlers arriving on the Americas and they are very dependent on the British. The quote "The Summer Soldier and the Sunshine Patriot will, in the crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves love and thanks of man and woman," shows future development of the struggles that will later come in the story (Paine 134). My interpretation on the quote is that the people who stand the ground now for the crisis will be rewarded greater than those who shrink away, or shy away from the problem, or crisis.

I would compare "The Crisis No. 1" with the rationalistic time period. The story represents the rationalism time period because one of the main characteristics of rationalism is fairness and justice. In the story, Paine talks about two common scenarios and how you cannot pardon one and punish the other, which shows how the people are striving for equality (Paine 136).

Paine was one of the main leaders in the rationalism period because he was one of those people who strived to better the world and tried to perfect himself. He worked to make changes in the world just like those of Jefferson, Henry, and Washington. This is evident in the story because he backs up his causes with reason and logic. I believe the rationalism period is when many men began to recognize what was going wrong and focused on ways to fix it. The people of this time period were very smart and they made changes that not only affected the world then, but still do today. The leaders of this period were able to stand out and up for what they believed in. Since this was not common for most people, they believed what the leaders had to say without question. What I took away from this story is that everyone needs to be involved. The people need to show their capabilities and faith through the work that they do (Paine 136). I think that in other words he is trying to say that we are all the same and connected in some way, but we have the ability to be different and stand out. It would benefit the people to help out now after the terrible winter they suffered than to be cowardly and shy away from the problems they now face (Paine 136). The rationalism time period was all about fixing the problems and not just letting them lay. The leaders of the time period thought of solutions to the problems rather than letting them be for someone else to worry about. The quote "Not all the treasures in the world so far I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder," (Paine 136) is a very powerful quote because I feel like he is saying we have to want to engage and participate in the war and the problems. The people should not be persuaded, but instead volunteer and show their faith in the problems. The end result is greater if the people do things out of their own deeds rather than being bribed to do so to help the common good. Overall I think the story was very good at portraying rationalism because of its persuasive qualities of trying to involve the people.

 Paine, Thomas."The Crisis, No. 1." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 134-136. Print.