Reflection: The Speech to the Second Virginia Convention

When I started reading this story, I mean started listening to this story, I felt like I was being yelled at. It was not a very pleasant voice reading the story to me, and it kind of scared me a little bit. But, then I thought about it and maybe that was its point all along. He is trying to persuade, like convince the people that it is his way that will work over the things in the past. He is trying to get these people to latch on to his 'great' ideas that will work in the upcoming future rather than sticking to he old and useless ways that would just waste time. The author is drifting more into the rational period style of writing compared to that of the puritan style. He uses more logical concepts that are different from the dull, boring, puritan writings from earlier this year. He is trying to persuade the listeners. I do not know about you but when i look back to the other writing we have read, none of them were sophisticated enough to use this amount of persuasion. The closest I could compare it to would be "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" because of the naturally angry, disturbed voice. In that story he was scaring the readers, but that is a sense of persuasion itself. So with The Speech to the Second Virginia Convention, we see a lot of sophistication going about. There was a lot of detail within this story which is different in comparison from works by let us say, Mary Bradstreet. This is not a dull story, so i think the author sort of uses this attention to detail to lure the readers in. I am sure to them it seems so interesting and pulls them in when they are used to things that are boring and just get straight to the point. The author has a lot of logical responses, and that is one of the main points in the rationalism writing style, right? He has evidence and support that backs his ideas and theories up. If someone dare question them or him, he has the support he needs to get them back on track and following his ways. The last sentence of the novel "Give me liberty, or give me death!"(Henry 118). Poses a very unique question or thought I should say. This man is willing to die for his liberty. Now, some would say this is pointless, but you can see the dramatic extreme thoughts in his head that probably is useful in persuading the listeners because if he feels so strongly about this, maybe they should too. He uses more logic then pure emotion here which is the main point showing its stile of rationalism. Pynchon states, "...undiluted rationalism makes impossible the apprehension of such spiritual reality as may exist"(qtd by Cowart) which is a line from the Literary criticism "The Conflict between Rationality and Spirituality." This essentially states that it is near impossible for spiritual puritanism to reside where rationalism resides as well. One is spirituality, and the other, scientific.  Henry, Patrick. "Speech to the Second Virginia Convention." American Literature. Columbus: Mc-Graw Hill, 2009. 114-18. Print.

 Cowart, David. "The Luddite Vision: Mason & Dixon." American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 71, no. 2 (1999): 341–43, 362–63. Quoted as "The Conflict Between Rationality and Spirituality" in Harold Bloom, ed. Thomas Pynchon, Bloom's Major Novelists. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2003. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BMNTP85&SingleRecord=True (accessed September 21, 2011).