The Crucible Act IV - Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

When I first heard Joseph Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, I was very scared. It was basically one of the scariest stories we have heard all year, which ironically is what Edwards wanted to do to his audience listening to his sermon at the time. I found his Puritan ideas and thinking to be very interesting. Looking back at The Crucible, people back then really needed a sermon like Edwards to keep themselves in line. They were ultimately going crazy accusing everyone and anyone that they are witches (Miller 48). Joseph Edwards sermon is something that the people in The Crucible needed to hear because their religious ideals and manners are being swept away by the crazy witch hunts going on in Salem.

Specific characteristics of Puritan writing include short and simple, to the point writings that are boring and pretty much dull. Well, The Crucible is definitely short and sweet, but it is not very boring and dull, in my opinion. The whole entire story started because of the decisions of a few girls in the woods playing fun and games. In Joesph Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, he states that people are losing their sense of religious ideas. By scaring the people back in to the church, hopefully the madness of the time would stop happening and people could go back to living their happy little lives like they did before. In Edwards sermon, the only way for people to survive from going into the fiery pits of hell was to save themselves basically and act like a good little Christian fellow. Even back in society then, people acted weird and very irrational in times of dispute and corruption. It is interesting to see how crazy the people in The Crucible went. They accused innocent people of witchcraft, like Giles (Miller 52) and slowly killed him in an agonizing and painful death. That seems a bit dramatic in my opinion. Even though Joesph Edwards sermon was somewhat harsh with its idea on hell and whatnot, at least he did not go crazy and tell people to murder others who are not following Jesus the way they should be.

I was very interested in The Crucible. It was a very weird yet oddly interesting story. I have heard a lot about it in the past so I am glad I put myself through the torture of reading it and getting that out of the way. Joesph Edwards sermon largely reflects what occurred in Arthur Miller's story, so the two somewhat explain each other in an odd way. Puritan writing is very boring I think, but overall The Crucible and Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God largely kept my attention and I was able to thoroughly enjoy what I was reading. I hope we are almost done with this nasty Puritan writing and get on to the good Rationalism stuff. That seems way more interesting than some weird witch hunt that probably never happened in the first place.

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