Literary Analysis Of Sinners In The Hand Of An Angry God

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Literary Analysis-Compare and Contrast The way an author conveys a message can more dimensions to the message. “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards, and “The Ministers Black Veil” by Nathanial Hawthorne, both convey similar messages in very different ways. “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” was a six-hour sermon written by a preacher to evoke fear into his congregation and “The Minister’s Black Veil” was a fictional, short story that gave the same effect but was over the minister’s lifetime. “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards is more effective because he was straightforward with his ideas. There are many similarities between these two literary works. “And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, …show more content…

The sermon was angry and emotional yet the preacher spoke calmly. “…felt as if the preacher had crept upon them, behind his awful veil, and discovered their hoarded iniquity of deed or thought.” In the short story, the minister changed his appearance to convey his message to his people but it was only revealed in the end what he was trying to tell them. In the sermon, the preacher was very explicit with his message but in the short story, the minister was very implicit with his. In the sermon, the theme is that the congregation must repent because “they are all sinners” but in the short story, the theme is that both the congregation and the minister must repent and that “we are all sinners”. The preacher in the sermon believes that he is safe from the wrath of god because he is different from the congregation. The minister in the short story believed that he, along with his people were sinners and to save themselves, they must all wear their “black veil”. In the short story, the symbolism of the black veil was that people treated him terribly only because he wore something and that separated him from the rest. They no longer treated with love and respect, but with fear and they avoided his presence. In the sermon, the minister tells his people of the crime of sin and that the hand of god would no longer hold them if they didn’t clean up their lives and regain their