Compare and Contrast Essay Example: Jonathan Edwards and Anne Bradstreet

When the Puritans moved to America, they came to look for religious freedom and hopefulness, sadly things didn’t go the way they expected. Anne Bradstreet exemplifies a typical Puritan wife and expresses her faith through her poetry. Bradstreet has written many works of poetry, including To My Dear and Loving Husband and The Burning of our House. Edwards, a passionate minister, presents intense sermons like Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The two authors are products of their time, shown by their attitudes toward religion and their narrative techniques to express their emotions. 

Bradstreet and Edwards use literary terms to express the importance of their emotions; however, the effects are shown in different ways. One way they both portray their emotions through their writing is by using imagery. Edwards uses creatures considered to be vile as a way to portray vivid imagery. For example, “To tread on and crush a worm that we see crawling on the earth” (Edwards 124). He’s showing how easy it is for God to send his enemies to hell. Edwards uses these visions to show us how much powerful God is compared to us while Bradstreet uses imagery to show her point of view from experiencing her house burning down. Bradstreet states “The flame consume my dwelling place” (Bradstreet, “Upon; 12). By using imagery in this sentence, she is trying to portray herself standing there and watching the fire take over her house. Although Bradstreet and Edwards show their emotions using the same literary devices, they also both show it using different devices as well. Edwards was extremely good at using diction to project his point across in the story. Edwards aggressively says, “Bear the fierceness of his wrath” (Edwards 124). Jonathan Edwards uses the word wrath as a way to emphasize that his anger should be fearful. Conversely, Anne Bradstreet uses personification as a way to capture her feelings and emotions. While watching the house burn, with sadness, “My sorrowing eyes aside did cast” (Bradstreet, “Upon; 22). Bradstreet is having trouble letting go of her house and all the memories. Whether they both used the same or different literary devices, Bradstreet and Edwards were both immensely good at using literary terms to show what they were feeling or to portray the emotions across to us. 

The heavy influence of God is shown in Bradstreet and Edwards’ writing; however, they express their religious faith in different ways. Bradstreet shows in her writing that God is someone who should be a loving guiding leader, who always has a plan in store for people, and rewards the ones that deserve it. Bradstreet states “My hope and treasure lies above” (Bradstreet, “Upon; 54). In this line of the poem, Bradstreet is trying to show her acceptance of the situation but also tells us that she understands God has a plan for her, and he’s creating a new beginning for her. In Bradstreet's poem To My Dear and Loving Husband, she exclaims “The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray” (Bradstreet, “To My; 10). Anne Bradstreet believes that they should love each other as much as possible while living in this world, so that when they are sent to heaven, their love will be eternal. She believed that how they loved each other on this earth was how they would be repaid by God to enter heaven. In contrast to Bradstreet, who influences through trust, acceptance, and love, Edwards influences belief on others by belittling listeners and to prompting the fear of God. Edwards aggressively expresses this by saying “There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship” (Edwards 127). His style of preaching is fearful as he tells us that even if you go to church and pray, you can still go to hell. He makes people believe that God should be fearful to us and that we need to turn towards God, otherwise he will send you to hell. Edwards states “You are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, then the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours” (Edwards 127). Edwards is trying to preach to us that we are despicable in God's eyes over a harmful snake. That we, as people, sin and do more wrong than a vulgar animal. As authors both Bradstreet and Edwards shared their religious faith with us, whether they showed it differently, they both showed us the effect God should have on us through their perspectives on life. 

Though both have influential writing during their time period, they both convey their emotions and feelings in different ways. As well as having different interpretations of religious faith. Overall, Anne Bradstreet and Edwards showed us how using literary devices in strong ways helped us understand the emotion through their stories better, whether they were trying to convey the same point across.