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Jonathan Edwards – Style Analysis The methods by which a person expresses his or her ideas, beliefs, or thoughts on a subject are as important as the actual content and feelings that the person attempts to evoke. When used effectively, the various methods combine together and create the author’s intended effect to the extent desired. Jonathan Edwards accomplishes this in his passage from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in which his tone and style effectively present the reader with his view of God as a powerful and able ruler over people and how vulnerable they are to Him. Edwards’ scornful tone creates the sense that he is God himself, professing his great power over the audience and demonstrating their immense vulnerability. He constantly accuses the audience of failing to recognize that God is the one in control, that He will ultimately decide their fate. By using carefully selected diction, Edwards emphasizes how God is playing with the audience, how they are puppets in his hands, and how he is simply toying with their strings. Strings, described as “slender thread(s)” which are “in the hands of an angry God.” And God’s “mere pleasure” is all that saves the audience from a horrendous fate. The syntax of the passage also supports the scornful tone, by continually repeating how merciful he is being, and yet how, at the same time, he could destroy them if he so wished. It is “nothing but the mere pleasure of God” that saves them all from “great waters that are damned for the present,” and later they are quickly reminded that the same pleasure “keeps (them) from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction.” This repetition carves the guilt and fear into the audience not only by presenting them with horrible fates, but also warning them that God’s decision is what decides their lives.
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