The Declaration of Independence Summary
Thomas Jefferson

The Declaration of Independence Summary

The Declaration of Independence is a comparatively brief work, consisting of only thirty-two paragraphs, most of which consist of a single, long sentence. As Lee A. Jacobus observes in his analysis of Jefferson's rhetoric in A World of Ideas, Jefferson incorporates causal analysis, "a method associated with legal thought" that indicates Jefferson's legal background. Put simply, the Declaration consists primarily of a list of causes that have encouraged the colonies to sever official ties with Great Britain. Jefferson also makes excellent use of parallelism, the construction of sentences so that they are relatively equal in length and structure. One interesting aspect of Jefferson's emphasis on parallelism is the use of "He" and "For" as the first words of paragraphs 3 through 29. This device is called anaphora, which Jacobus defines as "the technique of repetition of the same words at the beginning of successive lines." Ultimately it is Jefferson's mastery... View more of the The Declaration of Independence Summary