Sinners Vs The Black Veil
Jonathan Edwards, a Puritan minister preached about Puritan beliefs through strong diction and imagery that created a sense of fear and urgency in his followers. “The Minister’s Black Veil”by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “Sinners in the Hands of the Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards bring forth two different approaches with Puritan beliefs. They both compare and contrast the effects of sin and belief loyalty. I would describe Jonathan Edwards as angry and intense. Parson Hooper changes the readers view of Puritan ideas of religion by basing the example on Puritan beliefs.
Edwards and Hawthorne appeal to various emotions to better express their beliefs. In “Sinners in the Hands of the Angry God” Edwards says “There are black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful strom, and big thunder. ” The use of negative infernal language allows Edwards to create fear and guilt in his readers. Edward’s goal is to get his readers to feel remorse for their sins, and he believes he can accomplish this by using fear. While Jonathan Edwards uses gloomy words. Nathaniel Hawthorne attempts to set an example of the Puritan beliefs. Hawthorne states “ Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath. ” Hawthorne uses Parson Hooper to taunt the false virtue of the Puritans. Parson Hooper believes in expressing the way to regret instead of scaring his readers into drawing that conclusion, but his readers rejection of Hooper and his veil despite his loyalty expresses how insecure they were.
In Hawthorne’s story he isn’t so forward in what he is trying to say. He uses the Minister and his black veil to present an image on the surface but a entire story underneath. The Minister masks his “sin” through the black veil. This is different in comparison to Edwards very forward to the point sermon. Edwards writes about how dammed humankind is. He talks of what will occur is not accept God into your heart. “The Wrath of God is like great waters that are damned for the present. ” This uninviting view was given in the favor of coercion toward a new life in God.
As you can see both of these stories touch on religion but in a different way. Edwards is straight to his point in his sermon and Hawthorne covers up the true meaning of his story at first. The contrast in the author’s advance toward expressing religion show the readers different visions and outcomes. These imbalances lead readers to better comprehend the authors individual points. The result of setting an example has a more notable effect than words without exertion which manifests that Hawthorne’s style is more powerful than Edwards.
