Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God Analysis

707 Words3 Pages
Between Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, written by Jonathan Edwards, and The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, Edwards made a stronger argument in his literary work. Edwards incorporated a strong use of pathos, ethos, and logos. Jefferson used the same technique as well, but his use of these rhetorical strategies was not as strong. In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Edwards uses pathos in most of his work. Pathos means emotion and emotion is the building block of this passage. He uses passion and anger to get the message across to his audience. In this case, the Puritans. Although, this does not mean that Edwards is angry, it elicits this emotion in the reader. He reads his story in a calm demeanor but his…show more content…
When he writes, “This is the case of every one of you that are out of Christ”, he is addressing the Puritans. Edwards felt that the Puritans were “out of touch” with religion and God. That they forgot God created and controls all things. Edward’s states, the only thing between people and their fate is God’s hand. Edwards writes, “If God should only withdraw his hand from the floodgate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God, would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon with omnipotent power”. Jefferson had a bit of ethos as well. For example, Jefferson had an ethical appeal towards Great Britain. In his text, Britain respected Jefferson for what he had to say, but Edwards got his audience to fear his…show more content…
Logos means logic or persuading by reason. Edwards used religious logic to support his claims. In Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, the background info before the passage begins says, “Despite his calm demeanor, his listener are said to have groaned and screamed in terror. Edwards stopped several times to ask for silence.” This indicates the effect Edwards’ words had on his audience. When an author writes and gets his/her audience to feel something, then he/she have succeeded. Edwards has succeeded because he made his audience feel pain, terror, and fear in just a few sentences. When one reads a horror story, they are mesmerized by the fear they are feeling and that helps maintain their attention to the book. Whereas, Jefferson played it safe with his tone and choice of words. Jefferson did not pull fear or pain or any other real emotion in his readers. He did have passion behind his words, but not the same way Edwards did. In a way, both writers incorporated two different types of passion into their work. One passage brought out the terror in people and another brought out respect for the
Open Document