Question
Audience: Your professor
Purpose: Educate your reader, and make a solid case that your idea(s) about the selection are reasonable. Remember, an analytical (critical) essay makes an argument about the literature you are addressing.
Look back at the selections on your reading list. Choose any selection that you have NOT written about in Critical Essay One or Critical Essay Two. Using the guidelines above, write a critical essay that will teach me something and/or persuade me that your point of view is correct. Be sure to get your thesis statement (hence, your purpose) clearly in mind, and make all paragraphs grow from that statement. This paper must be cohesive—unified, structured and organized around your thesis.
Must write about either:
- 1) Today, the Christian God is often portrayed as loving, merciful and compassionate. Contrast these views with the views presented by Jonathan Edwards in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” You may choose to also consider the figurative language in Edwards’ sermon
2)
For “The Birthmark” –
- Discuss foreshadowing in this short story. (Perhaps over-foreshadowing? What effect does it have on the reader?)
- This story can be read as a cautionary tale. If Hawthorne is warning society to guard against something, what might that something be?
- Relate Aylmer’s quest for physical perfection (and, as the story progresses, Georgiana’s quest for the same) to modern ideals of physical perfection.
Solution
Early American Literature
Today Christians follow the portrait of God drawn from the bible and believe that He is full of love and merciful. Additionally, Christians believe that God never abandons His own creation, especially man who He created in His own image (Palliser 23). Even though they acknowledge that human beings can sometimes turn away from God and deserve punishment, they believe that He is ready to forgive and keep looking for ways to help them get back to the right track, the major one being sending His only son Jesus to earth so that he could save man. From today’s Christian perspective, God “is the God of mercy and compassion, slow to anger, overflowing with loving-kindness and faithfulness” (Psalm 86:15). In Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he claims that waiting sinners are waiting for God’s punishment in hell, which is full of His wrath and violence to make them pay for their sins and resistance to accepting Jesus. However, Edwards emphasizes God’s sovereignty and heavily blames the sinners who he believed should be condemned to hell for the violent punishments waiting for them. Acknowledging the brutal and extreme God’s punishment, Edwards directs the blame to undeserving sinners experiencing what he believes to be a just punishment (Kolodny 172). However, the idea of a vindictive and violent God who is full of wrath is evident in this sermon through figurative language, especially imagery and metaphors though Edwards aims to help the congregation understand religious ideas such as God’s wrath and their one precariousness. Despite Edwards’s evocations of Christ’s love and blaming sinners for the suffering waiting for them, his sermon gives the notion that God is full of wrath, violent and vindictive, and has no tendency towards mercy and no obligation to save human beings from hell……………for help with this assignment contact us via email Address: consulttutor10@gmail.com