Reflection- Henry

I actually do believe that Patrick Henry's speech is an example of what a rationalism period literature piece would be like. The Rationalism period is very different from it's previous period, of puritan writing. The main characteristics Rationalism writing exemplifies is they just simply state what things are really like. These use facts and data to get the point across, instead of using just believing god would take care of it, or going on pure emotion and no factual information to back things up. Also in the Rationalism period they do not just jump around and doil around the point, they get right to it. I like the Rationalism period a lot more because I like having some data and facts to prove something to me. When I read a story I like to know the events and the facts and data instead of seeing some pointless pictures or reading all the details that do not really matter. It is really annoying when an author takes four chapters to even set up the plot.

I think that the speech of Patrick Henry was a good example of the rationalism period because I think that he was think logically and not purely on his emotions. A famous quote by Patrick Henry is "Give me Liberty, or give me death." By stating this he is saying the war was well under wat before the actual war was even fired, because not everyone was on the same page, not everyone agreed. Many things leading up to the actual war had already happened. He shows that the colonies opinions do not really matter(Henry 118). Nothing they could really do was going to change where they were headed. At the Convention Henry makes everyonhe aware that if we are going to keep doing what we are doing then things are going to keep going how they are going...unless someone steps up and does something about it(Henry 116). The war was basically inevitable at this point. There was not really a way out of it, and I think Henry maybe did not even want to have this war but he was using his logic knowing that they were too far in to get out now. They had to fight this especially if they wanted to get what they wanted.

Because Henry uses logic in telling people at the convention that they are going to have to prepare for a war even if that is not want they want because they need to get liberty or they are going to keep living unhappy, that makes it a rational piece of literature in my opinion. I do not even think that Henry wanted the war because let's be honest, nobody really wants war, however Henry needed to be logical in order to have himself prepared for the war, as well as convince others that they needed to prepare for it because he knew that if they did not prepare it would all be for nothing. If they did prepare then maybe they would finally get what they had been wanting this whole time, liberty and freedom.

Henry, Patrick. "Speech to the Second Virginia Convention." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 114-118. Print.