Jonathan Edwards is a Puritan preacher presented in two distinct phases of life: a curious teenager and a fierce, unyielding adult. As a youth, he observes the natural world with wonder, recording the precise movements of insects and animals. As an adult, he relies on terrifying imagery of fire and brimstone to frighten his parishioners into religious conversion, focusing heavily on human depravity.

Josiah Hawley is Jonathan Edwards's uncle and an inhabitant of the Puritan community in New England. He lives under the heavy expectations of strict Calvinist doctrine and experiences deep spiritual anxiety regarding his faith and salvation. He bears the immense psychological weight of the religious fervor sweeping through his family and community.

God is personified as a supremely powerful and wrathful deity who commands absolute authority over the universe. He possesses giant hands that physically grip humanity, viewing sinners with extreme disgust. He constantly threatens to drop humans into eternal fires, dwarfing all mortal efforts at self-defense or spiritual survival.

The Spider is an anthropomorphized creature within the natural world that undergoes continuous transformation in the eyes of the speaker. Initially a beautiful, weightless insect riding the autumn winds, it is later reframed as a loathsome, personified symbol of human depravity. The creature eventually takes on the specific identity of a Black Widow, exhibiting a dangerous autonomy that rejects human attempts to control its meaning.