Sin in Fire From Heaven, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Flea
In Fire from Heaven, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Flea, the
authors take a stance on men and women committing sinful acts and using it
as a main position in their work. They write from a very religious
perspective which is probably due to the time period in which their work
was written. They develop this idea in very different perspectives
to get their point across. They express this position vividly throughout
their work.
David Underdown didn't live in this time period, but his work was a
work of history and his ideas coincided with those of the Puritans. He
uses these ideas to take a position on the Puritan's side and to better
explain the good they were trying to achieve. The Puritans of Dorchester
as we have learned about our reading, were a very religious group who
wanted to create the perfect society. Their mission in Dorchester was to
make extinct all the sinful acts of the townspeople. The struggle they
started soon ended in failure. They were a definite influence upon his work.
His views of sexual misconduct between married men and women being worse
than that between unmarried people probably come from his growing up in a
more modern world. The Puritans probably did distinguish some, but it
wasn't very prominent or apparent. His makes this point clear in the
passage, "Misbehavior among married people was especially serious, as it
was likely to disrupt existing families, which were of course regarded as
the essential foundations of any ordered, virtuous society(p.66)." The
Puritan influence is very prominent in excerpt from the previous quote,
"families,... the essential foundations of any ordered, virtuous
society(p.66)." Underdown also makes a reference to the others towns in
the area and how the Puritan presence made a difference, "It is unlikely
that Dorchester people were any more, or any less, loose in their sexual
habits than their neighbors in other place. But stories of their misdeeds
even in the years of the puritan ascendancy are abundant(p.66)." With this
passage the author shows how the presence of the Puritans changed the total
view of the town and its people.
Underdown used the sinful acts between men and women to draw out
people and draw a greater conclusion. This greater conclusion being the
cause of the Puritans and how virtuous they actually were. The point of
laying a mark on people is easy to see in the excerpt, "An assault charge
against Parkins in July 1629 was followed by a scattering of others for
swearing, drinking and absence from church. But it was his sexual
promiscuity that really marked him out(p.67)." The charges against were
serious and undoubtably frowned upon, but the fact that he was sexually
promiscuous is what separated him from society. The fact that he, "In
September 1629 he was alleged to be abusing his position as trustee for a
neighbor imprisoned for debt, by sleeping with his wife(p.67)." Some other
accounts of his misbehavior are in the passage, "In May 1634 the constables
found him in a upstairs room at Christopher Jenkin's notoriously disorderly
house with an unmarried woman named Sarah Harris, and in the following
August he was accused of having raped Mary Jefferies(p.67)." There was a
lot of shame in being involved in such acts even if the person did not
participate willingly. A case like this was mentioned in the passage, "In
January 1635 a more plausible charge of rape was made by Basil Cooke,
daughter of a respectable alehousekeeper, William Cooke. Even then the
girl's parents waited five days before going to the magistrates, during
which time Parkins's friends the Hasselburys (in whose house the incident
occurred) offered Basil's mother five pounds to hush it up(p.68)." There
were many other incidents like these written in detail throughout Fire from
Heaven. Through all these documentations Underdown draws up the big
picture of how all these incidents of sin helped overthrow the Puritans.
He draws his conclusion from the thought that the Puritans just couldn't
break the Dorchester townspeople from their sinful habits.
Shakespeare's play Much Ado About Nothing is a play of passion and
deceit. The plot draws its strength from the thought of a sinful act
committed between a man and woman. Shakespeare was a very insightful
person to create such complex plots. He creates sort of small play within
the play itself. One of the plays within the play Much Ado About Nothing is
the conflict between Hero and Claudio. The author throws out his passion in
the passage spoke by Claudio,
Out on thee, seeming! I will write against it.
You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;
But you are more intemperate in your blood
Than Venus, or those pamp'red animals
That rage in savage sensuality (p.96)
In that passage Claudio is denouncing Hero's plea of innocence. He was
over come by the idea that Hero had sexual relations with another before.
The lines of this passage display his anger fluently. Hero has no voice,
she has been denounced throughly by just about everyone. She tries to
speak out in her own defense in the passage, "O, God defend me! How am I
beset! What kind of catechizing call you this(p.97)." and the in the
passage, "I talked with no man at that hour, my lord(p.97)." Though she
makes these pleas Don Pedro just slams the door in her face in the passage ,
Why, then are you no maiden. Leonato,
I am sorry you must hear. Upon mine honor
Myself, my brother, and this grieved Count
Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night
Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window
Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,
Confessed the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret(p.97).
The truth is finally revealed and Hero's honor is restored, but she is
thought to be dead. So, Claudio agrees to marry another and it turned out
to be Hero. The author uses Hero's supposable affair to bring the audience
into the play with the anger and passion that resulted. Then he finished up
the play with a happy ending. The major position of his play was how wrong
it would have been for Hero to cheat on him. Shakespeare illustrated this
play very well, having followed through so well with Claudio and Hero.
John Donne writes a poem of great beauty in the Flea. He uses a
flea sucking blood from a man and a woman to justify an act of sin. He
presents this in the passage, "Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered
swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would
do(Lines 7-9,The Flea)." He describes the flea's blood of being more than
one, hence the man and woman. He goes on to say that the bond the flea
created is stronger than any marital ceremony. He claims the flea is their
marriage and killing it would kill part of them. He conveys this idea in
the following excerpts, "This flea is you and I, and this our marriage bed
and marriage temple is; Though parents grudge, and you, we are met and
cloistered in these living walls of jet. Though use make you apt to kill
me, let not to that, self-murder added be, and sacrilege, three sins in
killing three(Lines 12-18)." He describes what they have as a bond for
life and also a right to do what they please because what they have is
beautiful and pure to the fullest extent of life. This act of sin is
transformed in Donne's poem to a just and beautiful display of affection
between two consenting adults.
These authors use the position of sinful acts as a strengthening
point for their corresponding works of literature. They take the same idea
and transform it into their basis for their work. David Underdown used
this idea to exaggerate the importance of the Puritan presence. Shakespeare
took this idea and made it add an element of passion and anger to give a
climax to the story. While Donne used this idea bring beauty and love to a
unjust act. The idea of a sinful act taking place never changed from
author to author, but the way they used it was magnificent to literature
itself.
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