Literary Devices In Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, And Jonathan Edwards

Literary devices are ultimately used in efforts of leading the audience to a better understanding of the author’s main point. The use of literary devices within the works that we have read throughout the semester have portrayed themselves to be strategic, to say the least. Literary devices such as metaphors, similes, alliterations, puns, and personification help to justify what the speaker is informing the audience of. In an attempt to explain the meaning of the work at hand, authors use literary devices to further verify a point, progress an argument, or to build a specific way of structure. Personally, in the analysis of Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, and Jonathan Edwards’ notable poems and sermons, the great use of literary devices helped

me to appreciate, and sometimes feel a sense of humor, towards their ideas. The famous authors’ uses of literary devices allowed me to better interpret their main points and ideas in a way that I would not have thought prior to examining them. Metaphors, similes, and personification are used recurrently in Bradstreet, Wheatley, and Edwards’ works. When literary devices are properly used in works, which is the case for these authors, they help to communicate the ultimate message to the audience.
“A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is literally not applicable,” is how Miriam Webster defines a metaphor. The definition I would give a metaphor after reading the works by these authors would be “cringing at the grasp of the authors’ deep rooted beliefs through ways individuals cannot drawn possible comparisons.” This personal definition comes from feelings experienced during, and after, reading “Sinner’s in the Hands of an Angry God,” “The Author to Her Book,” and “On Being Brought from Africa to America.” In Jonathan Edwards’ tunnel-visioned sermon, he unveils metaphorical expressions and instances intended for the audience’s emotions. By using metaphors, unsympathetic words, and resilient opinions, Edwards successfully connects physical and spiritual aspects of those that the sermon is pointed towards. When considering the fate of those who do not commit to God as he does, he states “The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God…without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood” (Edwards 435). Through this, Edwards alludes to the idea that God controls your demise, being that you are uncommitted to him. In addition to this cruel connection, what I find most descriptive and can actually see playing out in my imaginations is “…a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God…” (Edwards 431), which provides a broad amount of connections between the physical and spiritual aspects that are described. The damnation being applied to a bottomless pit and fire of wrath leaves a great amount of room for interpretation. In “The Author to Her Book,” Anne Bradstreet uses her emotions as an extended metaphor to transport the strong feelings she experiences. In essence, extended metaphors take unattached concepts and conjoin them to illustrate just how comparable they are. In Bradstreet’s poem, she takes what she feels is an inadequately written book that has been published without her knowledge, and a child that has been parented poorly, and parallels the two in a way that displays how alike they truly are. Metaphors that sum up how she truthfully feels are parenting and motherhood, which illustrate a personal relationship with the publication. The first line of the poem starts with the metaphor “Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain, / Who after the birth didst by my side remain” (1-2), which expresses the contents of her book to be a problematic, “ill-developed” child that she faults herself for. In addition to opening with this connection, she gives the reader a real feel of connection in the closing lines. “If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none; / And for thy mother, she alas is poor, / Which caused her thus to send thee out of door” (22-24), uses metaphor to convey the idea that the book was written by herself with no assistance, therefor the child has no father, and that she is isolating herself from the roles of both the mother and the author of the book. “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” Phillis Wheatley uses metaphors to allow the reader to easily see the points that she is trying to make as a slave. In the case of comparing an African American’s skin with a characteristic of impossible relations, Wheatley says, “Their color is a diabolic dye” (6). In addition to this, the conclusion of the poem is done through metaphorical use. “Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain, / May be refined, and join the angelic train” (7-8), the angelic train is used for the illustration of Heaven, connecting the two. Metaphors are extremely prevalent in these major works, ultimately relating difficult concepts to concepts that are not possible, in the instance for drawing connections and allowing the audience to relate to them.
Just as metaphors connect an idea to a concept that is literally impossible, similes draw comparisons between two unrelated things that share a greater idea of correlation and commonality.

More than just the simile “cool as a cucumber,” these authors establish an essence of connections in their deep-rooted beliefs and topics of discussion. In Jonathon Edwards’ sermon, this commonality is depicted through “The God that holds you over the put of Hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire…” (Edwards 436). This not only draws a connection, but also establishes the feelings Edwards’ has for those who have not committed to God as feelings of hatred, just as there is a feeling of repulsiveness for spiders. Anne Bradstreet’s use of similes is present in “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet,” where she compares the presence of life that has gone too fast to concepts that many know are temporary, making it easier for the reader to establish the feelings. “I knew she was but as a withering flower, / Like as a bubble, or the brittle glass. / Or like a shadow turning as it was” (9-12), illustrates how she feels that her grandchild’s time was so temporary, like things that individuals know will vanish quickly, in a relatable sense. In the example used previously regarding metaphors in Phillis Wheatley’s “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” there is a simile present as well. “Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain…” (7), connects the biblical figure that is “marked” by God for his sins, and dark-skinned African Americans. All connections show how literary devices, in this case similes, can give the reader a greater level of connection and depiction for what the author is trying to

portray.
Rather than linking two separate ideas in order to convey meaning, personification allows authors to attribute life-like characteristics to inanimate beings in order to prove a point and tell a story. Edwards uses personification in order to create vivid imagery in the reader’s minds. The image of horrific beings making people suffer is presented by “hell opens its mouth wide to receive them” and “the pit hath opened its mouth under them” (Edwards 432). In efforts to mentally construe the audience to feel the “wrath,” similes prove a strong point. Life-like qualities are given to inanimate objects in a great deal of Bradstreet’s poems. In “The Flesh and the Spirit,” these two heavenly beings are treated as sisters with humanistic attributes. “I heard two sisters reason on, / Things that are past and things to come; / One Flesh was called, who had her eye / On worldly heath and vanity; / The other spirit, who did rear / Her thoughts unto a higher sphere…” (3-8), gives familial characteristics to the two heavenly beings. More so, Bradstreet’s extended metaphor, “The Author of Her Book,” purely exemplifies personification for her “rambling brat (in print)” (8), in regards to her book as her child. Bradstreet also refers to the book as having no father in addition to a poor mother in order to create the portrayal of her “ill-formed” publication. Finally, Wheatley, in “To His Excellency General Washington,” humanizes America. “Columbia’s scenes of glorious toils I write. / While freedom’s cause her anxious breast alarms, / She flashes dreadful in refulgent arms” (2-5) initiates America as the goddess of liberty. Throughout the poem, “astonished ocean feels the wild uproar” (17), and then again at the conclusion of the poem, Wheatley asks the goddess of liberty to guide General Washington in both his travels and choices. “Proceed, great chief, with virtue on thy side, / Thy every action let thy goddess guide” (39-40) continues to reference America as “the land Columbus found” to be Washington’s protector. Usage of personification enhances the deeper meaning given to poems and literary works, permitting hidden descriptions to spark the imagination of the reader.
The use of literary devices in major works impact how you interpret a passage more than you know. While reading through passages that contain metaphors, similes, and personification, you are able to better understand the main arguments of the author, even if it is subconscious. The uses of literary devices within the works that we have read throughout the semester have depicted themselves to be extremely strategic. The authors’ uses of literary devices allowed me to better interpret their main points and ideas in a way that I would not have thought prior to examining them. Metaphors, similes, and personification are used recurrently in Bradstreet, Wheatley, and Edwards’ works in efforts to give the audience a better understanding of their central arguments.