Upon The Burning Of Our House By Anne Bradstreet

826 Words2 Pages

The way that people express their views about the same thing can show a lot about people’s beliefs and their character. Anne Bradstreet, writer of Upon the Burning of our House essentially has the same views as Jonathan Edwards, a preacher, whose most famous sermon is called, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”. Both Bradstreet and Edwards have God as a very important figure in their lives, they just project their views onto the public in vastly different ways. Bradstreet views God as a forgiving and loving figure and Edwards always describes God as an angry being who will not hesitate to throw people into Hell.
When Anne Bradstreet writes, she makes it obvious that she views God as a loving being who does things for good reasons. For …show more content…

. .”(lines 14-18). Only a couple of lines into this 54 line poem Bradstreet is already saying how she knows her house burned down for a reason. She knew she could do nothing about her recently burned down house so, instead of lashing out at God, she just accepted that God had a good reason for burning her house down. She also mentions, “It was His own. . .” meaning that she knew her time on Earth was limited and that nothing was permanent so she basically owned nothing anyway, she only had the stuff she had because of God’s will. Making Bradstreet seem like a forgiving person because she believed that was God’s …show more content…

. . Yet by his gift is made thine own;/ There’s wealth enough, I need no more. . .”(lines 50-51). By saying this she is expressing her belief that the only reason that she had anything was because of God and that even though she had lost most of her possessions and, presumably, most of her money she still did not care. She knew that there was more money in the world and she thought that it did not matter if that money was in her possession or God’s. Anne Bradstreet knew that everything on Earth was temporary so she did not mind the fact that she had lost her possessions, for she could get new ones and she could get more money. The fact that she lost what she had previously called home did not bother her much because she knew that she could easily get a new place to call home. Bradstreet believed that the only eternal thing was Heaven, Edwards believed it was Hell. Edwards, on the other hand, says God has an, “. . .everlasting wrath. It would be dreadful to suffer this fierceness and wrath of the Almighty God one moment; but you must suffer it to all eternity. There will be no end to this exquisite horrible misery”(lines 75-77). Edwards is telling people that if they believe in God but are not converted, or if they do not believe in God, that they would face eternal damnation in Hell. Edwards made people afraid of invoking God’s wrath, he told people that God was always angry at them. Bradstreet does the complete

Open Document