Sinners In The Hand Of An Angry God Essay, Research Paper

The passages given from the Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and the opening sentence of the Declaration both include many points such as the tone, diction, and syntax. The points shown throughout each sentence aims for the intent of obtaining the attention of the audience. The way each sentence is arranged with its own syntax can very well appeal to listeners, depending on its structure and imagery.

Within the given sentence excerpt from Edwards Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God you may perceive that the speaker is undoubtedly reaching for the audiences attention without sustaining his harsh yet fearful manner. Throughout this controlled harsh tone of voice, he captivates the audience through a deep sense of threat or harm. Within this deep threatening and captivating speech, the speaker uses God as the higher power in order to obtain the audiences attention, to grasp each person s emotions and fill them with fear. The speaker uses fear to complete the assurance of the people to do his intentions.

Although the Edwards excerpt sentence involved fear, emotional deception and mental deception to obtain the audiences full attention, the opening sentence of Jefferson s Declaration gives the audience a much different approach to procure the audiences focus. Jefferson s opening sentence has a mild tone of diction, for the beginning of an informative speech. The eloquent words highly imposed among the speech, when dictated, create a powerful sentence that attracts the attention of the audience with curiosity in what the speaker has to say. Thus intriguing the people, informing them with important knowledge that needs to be said.

The opening sentence in the Declaration as compared with the Edwards sentence shows the different styles of syntax. Syntax in which the speaker intentionally uses threats, to force the audience to listen to, or do the speaker s intentions and directions, as shown in the Edwards excerpt. A totally different approach is used in the opening sentence of the Declaration, it has a powerful yet intriguing beginning that wets the listeners curiosity. The excerpt sentence from the Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is segmented, showing many pauses in the speakers speech, as if to stop and see if the audience is listening. Through the opening sentence of the Declaration, there is no segmentation at all, the entire sentence flows out so eloquently and smoothly, showing how dominant the speaker must be. Since this sentence is coming from an authoritive figure, (Thomas Jefferson) the people that are listening to this informative speech are more respectful of the speaker, therefor listening to every word he has to say. Unlike Jefferson s authoritive and well-respected figure, the speaker from the Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God had much less authority, as shown through the diction of the entire sentence, once again by the segmented syntax.