Answer:

The image Edwards creates here is the vivid mental picture of someone crushing a worm. Edwards is also using figurative language because he compares the ease with which God can “cast his enemies down to hell” with the ease of our crushing a worm beneath our feet. The point he is making is that human beings are as small and powerless in the eyes of God as worms are to us; just as a worm is at our mercies for its existence, so we are at God’s for our existence. The most important reason to analyze a writer’s usage of imagery and figurative is to recognize how it contributes to the point he is trying to make or the effect he is attempting to create. This is true whether the writer is Jonathan Edwards attempting to inspire terror in the hearts of his congregation or a sports writer for a newspaper trying to help his readers experience the excitement of a football game they were not able to see. If writers just throw a surplus of images and figures of speech into their writing, it seems artificial and amateurish, and it can be annoying.

Types of Imagery

Although the word “imagery” most often brings to mind mental images, imagery is not always visual; it can appeal to any of the five senses. Here is a list of some types of imagery that appeal to different senses:

Auditory imagery appeals to the sense of hearing.

· Gustatory imagery appeals to the sense of taste.

· Kinetic imagery conveys a sense of motion.

· Olfactory imagery appeals to the sense of smell.

· Tactile imagery appeals to the sense of touch.

· Visual imagery is created with pictures (many visual images are pictures of things representing well-known sayings or phrases).