Antagonist

Character Role Analysis

The King of England

Paine goes to great lengths to criticize the British and their tyrannical hold over America, but the person he's really criticizing is the King of England. It's the King who's ultimately responsible for sending his armies to put down the American rebellion.

The dude also forced some brutal laws and taxes on America to teach them a lesson about rebelling. Paine refers to the King of England as a tyrant, and we totally buy it. Whenever we read Common Sense we think of the King as looking like some kind of evil cross between the Monopoly Man and the warden from The Shawshank Redemption.