Comparing Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God By Nathaniel Hawthorne And Jonathan Edwards

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Jonathan Edwards wrote two different, but similar pieces of writing. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “Young Goodman Brown” and Jonathan Edwards wrote “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” “Young Goodman Brown” is about a man taking a walk through the woods and finding something about his faith he didn’t know. “Sinners in the Hands of and Angry God” is about how a he used God in order to scare people into believing. These two writings can be compared by using three things; tone, way of deliverance, and the time. The tone used in “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was serious, but hopeful at the same time. While “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards, was more sharp. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses

Nathaniel Hawthorne using a story and symbolism, while Johnathan Edwards uses direct words that do not sugar coat anything. Hawthorne uses his story of a man leaving his wife for the night and following a path through the woods. He talks about all of the things that happen on the way. He includes symbolism to describe the people and things. For example, his wife Faith is not only used to symbolize his wife, but also used to symbolize his Faith in religion/God. Edwards uses straight forward words and expressions that are not covered up by a symbol. He tells everyone that they have no chance of going to heaven unless they chose to be saved. If they do not God does not care because he enjoys to see them suffer. Edwards tells everything how it is without holding

The time period affected the way that the writings turn out. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was written during the Great Awakening. During the Great Awakening religion was a big deal. Sermons were given in order to convert people’s religious beliefs. Edwards was one of the preachers giving sermons. In this time period they wanted everyone to have a pure belief in God. If this time people would have not occurred when this writing was written, Edwards probably would have gone a different way with it. “Young Goodman Brown” was written during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. This time period affected the story. We know that this time period affected the writing because along the path the “devil” is talking to a witch and Young Goodman Brown was shocked to see what he did not know. The people that Goodman Brown meet along the journey were also from Salem, giving us another reasoning to say that the time period does effect the