Answer all 4 of the questions in Section I, providing textual evidence from the readings for support. You must have textual evidence from the
readings to support your answers. Please make sure to use in-text citations to cite material you quote or paraphrase from a source.
SECTION 1:
1. Paine and Franklin were both ardent believers in “Age of Reason,” but what differences in temperament do you sense between those two
thinkers, as proponents of the age of reason?
2. What is the religion Franklin preaches in Father Abraham’s speech in “The Ways to Wealth?”
3. In Rowlandson’s Narrative, locate 3 passages that seem to vary or conflict in portraying her view of her captors. Discuss and explain the
probable differences or conflicts.
4. Compare one of Abigail’s letters to John with one of Bradstreet’s poems to her husband (example: “absent upon employment”). How are
sentiments expressed and constrained in both of the texts?
Answer 3 of the 6 questions in Section II thoroughly, writing the answers in complete sentences. You should showcase your knowledge of the
authors’ backgrounds and the readings in your answers. You should provide detailed answers.
SECTION 2:
5. From “Sinner’s in the Hands of an Angry God”-
At one point in his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Edwards provides an extended monologue of a hypothetical sinner caught
unaware by God’s thunderous wrath: “‘No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive
well for myself: I thought my scheme good. I intended to take effectual care; but it came upon me unexpected; I did not look for it at that
time, and in that manner; it came as a thief: Death outwitted me: God’s wrath was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering
myself, and pleasing myself with vague dreams of what I would do hereafter; and when I was saying, peace and safety, then suddenly death and
destruction rained down upon me’” (433-4). What is the effect of ventriloquizing such a person, for so much time in his sermon? What does
Edwards mean to do by giving this monologue of wickedness a human face?
6. From “Sinner’s in the Hands of an Angry God”-
If God should only withdraw His hand from the floodgate, it would immediately fly open, and the fiery floods of the fierceness and wrath of God,
would rush forth with inconceivable fury, and would come upon you with omnipotent power; and if your strength were ten thousand times greater
than it is, yea, ten thousand times greater than the strength of the stoutest, sturdiest devil in hell, it would be nothing to withstand it or
endure it” (435). None of the content of this passage is new; Edwards has been hammering home his theme of God’s wrath from the beginning of the
sermon, and will continue until its end. Give a reading of the language of this passage, with attention to poetic devices of sound and
rhetorical devices of direct address and repetition: why should this passage be moving and effective?
7. From “Sinner’s in the Hands of an Angry God”-
“However unconvinced you may now be of the truth of what you hear, by and by you will be fully convinced of it. Those that are gone from being
in the like circumstances with you see that it was so with them; for destruction came suddenly upon most of them; when they expected nothing of
it and while they were saying, peace and safety: now they see that those things on which they depended for peace and safety, were nothing but
thin air and empty shadows” (436). This passage marks the second appearance of the phrase “peace and safety” (see question 1 for the other
passage), which seems to be a marker for Edwards of religious hypocrisy. What does this particular phrase signify in the congregation, and how
can it mask a “natural man” who has not actually embraced Christ so that it seems as though he has?
8. In the 1st paragraph of Common Sense’s introduction, Paine admits “Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages are not yet
sufficiently fashionable to procure the general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being
right, and it raises first a formidable outcry in defense of custom, But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than Reason” (641). How
does Paine’s Initial disclaimer, and in particular its last sentence, compare with the stated goals of this pamphlet?
9. From “Common Sense: “The cause of America is a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise which are not
local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which their affections are
interested” (641). Consider what you know of the enlightenment and interpret the type of appeal Paine makes to his reader based on these
sentences. Remember the rest of the pamphlet deals with the particulars and specifics of grievances the colonies have against Britain.
10. Why does Winthrop go to such great lengths to seek evidence that Hutchinson is dangerously wrong and has lost favor with God? What are the
implications, and possible dangers, that can arise from that kind of close reading of worldly experience?
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