Olaudah Equiano Persuasion Analysis

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Persuading With Fear or Sympathy? Persuasion is a powerful thing. Many great early American writers used persuasion in their works. Among these fine writers were Jonathan Edwards and Olaudah Equiano, who used modes of discourse, styles, purposes, and tone to persuade their audience. Their relationship with the community made a big impact on their writing style as well, for their life styles were quite opposite from each other. Edwards, a powerful Caucasian preacher and writer, whose writing and preaching remained popular after his death helped keep Puritan ideas alive for years to come, even after Puritanism had vanished. Equiano, an African man, sold into slavery, was the author of his biography which depicted the evils of slavery and helped…show more content…
For Edwards this included his view on religion. He believed that “There is nothing between you and Hell but the air; it is only the power and the mere pleasure of God that holds you up.” (41) He wanted to convince to repent, to be reborn in Christ. Last but not least, he wanted to save sinners from a decent into Hell’s fury. The moral of his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was therefore that if sin is committed, a persons tie with God is broken and they will fall into the hands of Hell. Edward’s diction and tone gives his listeners and readers an eerie feeling, a fear for sin, and an awakening for the wrath of God about to come. On the other hand, there is Equiano, who persuades the horrors of slavery in attempt to abolish the slave trade. He appeals to our senses with phrases such as “galling of the chains”, “shrieks of the women” and “groans of the dying” (73), giving his audience a feeling of sympathy. With these statements he makes people question the morality of the situation, in order to get his point across, that slavery brutalizes everyone; the slaves, their overseers, plantation wives, and the whole of

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