The Role Of Human Nature In Early American Literature

Over the years the topic of human nature has been studied and debated by many. Human nature can be defined as distinct characteristics that include how people think and act naturally. Between past and present events, there is corruption in human nature. With the corruption of human nature people only do kind acts only out of self interest. Throughout history, early American authors, such as Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Jefferson, and Olaudah Equiano, convey how they view human nature through their literature. While Edwards and Equiano views human nature as purely evil and greedy. Meanwhile Jefferson also talks about the corruption of human nature, he includes how humans has the choice of changing their evil ways. Although these early writers are different people, they share similar views on human nature through use of rhetorical strategies such as
Thomas Jefferson believes that King George did not give them a choice and explains how the king unfairly treats the colonies. He states that “[King George] has kept among [them] in the Time in Peace, taxed armies and ships of war without the consent of [their] Legislature”(Jefferson). He uses the loaded words “consent” and “our” to explain that the king did not care about what the colonists thought. The colonists had no representation where they lived whereas the king from across the ocean decided everything for them. Additionally, the king had taken away their basic rights and did not allow the colonists to have a voice in the decisions being made. Using parallelism, the author states that “among the powers of the Earth the separate and equal station to which laws of Nature and Nature’s God entitle them…”(Jefferson). Jefferson repeats “nature” over and over because he believes he believes that the king took away their rights that can not be given to them only received at