The Crucible: Act Four

Drawing parallels between these two literary works, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and The Crucible is almost impossible. It's 9:30 and I just got home from golf, so my creative juices aren't exactly flowing. 500 words is going to be difficult. Here goes nothing.

The story Sinners is actually a sermon written by Jonathon Edwards. The sermon is very angry and it has a very hostile tone. The sermon tells of all of the scary parts of Hell and how the sinners are going to go to Hell unless they seek God. Edwards is almost angry because he doesn't understand why the people did not go to God to be saved when he has been there all along. He really tries to scare the people listening to his sermon. In the book The Crucible, Abigail tries to scare the girls into keeping quiet about the witch craft. That was such a lame comparison, I'm really sorry.

"The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you were suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. 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. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell (Edwards 69)."

That passage was a great way of showing that the Puritans believed that God was in control of their lives, much like in the story how the people thought that they were able to take the trials into their hands, but in fact God was the only person who could come up with the outcome. The two stories share many different important factors, mainly because they are both examples of Puritan writing. The Crucible however was written much later than the sermon, but they both have a similar writing style. The sermon has a much different tone, it is very scary.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Print.