1. Imagery:
One of the main uses of imagery in this poem is the image of fire. Jonathan Edwards mentions fire and Hell multiple times to instate a sense of fear within the reader.
Example: "That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God"
Another image that is used slightly less is the mention of spiders. Edwards uses the simile of a spider's web withstanding a falling rock to portray the relentless and unstoppable descent of a sinner into Hell.
Example: "would have no more influence to uphold you and keep you out of hell, than a spider's web would have to stop a fallen rock."
The third and final repetition of imagery is in the application of water. He mentions thunderclouds, floods, and other things involving water that inspire fear or anxiety in a person.
Example: "There are black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder; and were it not for the restraining hand of God, it would immediately burst forth upon you."
"O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath s provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hand by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing lay down of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment."
4. Images:
5. Reflection:
I chose these three images as more literal impressions of the poem. I used a picture of marshmallows over a fire as an analogy for sinners being held over the fires of Hell, content and unknowing of God's role in their safety. Second, I used a picture of a broken spiderweb to show how frail and weak the spiderweb is, as well as how little God would have to do to drop you into Hell. The third picture I chose is of a flood, an event that most people fear.
My group's image:
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