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Puritans influence on modern america
The impact of Puritans on America
The influence of Puritans on America
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Puritan Society in Colonial America
Puritan society in colonial America was a made up of a strict community whom blamed all evil deeds and wrong doings on on the devil or witchcraft and condemned drama, dancing, and music. “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller and “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne are set in Puritan society of colonial America and depict the society in a harsh sense. “The Crucible” is the story of witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts while “The Scarlet Letter” tells the story of a woman named Hester Prynne who is shamed after committing a crime. Both stories show how Puritan society is and the expectations it puts on its citizens. Based on research of Puritan society in colonial America and reading both “The Crucible” by Arthur
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Betty, a young female citizen had fallen ill after spending time in the woods dancing with other girls, like Abigail. When Abigail confessed to the dancing, it shocked members of her community. Through the citizens being shocked about the dancing and quickly saying it was in secret, it is shown that the community is strict because something as harmless as dancing should be kept hidden. Secondly, “The Crucible” showed how Puritan society expected its citizens to be honorable through showing no emotion. At the end of the story, Proctor confessed to court, but refused to confess to the town, upsetting his wife whom he told to show honor. “Elizabeth, in a burst of terror, rushes to him and weeps against his hand. Give them no tear! Tears pleasure them! Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it!” (Miller 144). Elizabeth is distressed at her husband’s choice, but being upset in front of authority is a sign of weakness. Puritan society expects its members to be honorable hence why Proctor asks his wife to show a stony heart. Similarly, “The Scarlet Letter” makes Puritan society out to be harsh and expects its citizens to be
In The Crucible, the main struggle of all women is to be a perfect Puritan, wife, or friend, while the men struggle to uphold their reputations without sullying anyone else’s. Elizabeth Proctor is a prime example of a Puritan woman who strives to be the perfect wife. She demonstrates this by cooking for her husband and putting effort into cooking for him. When he compliments her food, she blushes, which exemplifies her desire to please him and to be a good wife for him. Elizabeth also forgives John for having an affair with Abigail. Even though John accuses her of judging him for his affair, Elizabeth maintains that she does not judge him for those actions. When he continues to claim that she has not and will not forgive him, she says, “I have sins of my own to count. It needs a cold wife to prompt lechery” (Miller 137). By saying this to John, she is telling him that she sins too and that she has things other than his sins to worry about. She appears to be hurt by his blame and lack of trust in her. John
Miller Edwards,Hawthorne and korning each show how religion was a sin in puritan cultures and affected many people’s lives that punishment will come when you have disgraced your religion that good is against the devil there is a strict form of puritan. Puritans were dedicated to work to save themselves from the sins in the world. Guilt was a great force in the puritans belief. The people in the story are Puritans a religion often depicted because of its rules and severe punishments to those who sin. The puritans left england to avoid religious persecution they established a society in America founded upon religion intolerance, Up surprising result the church dominates the Puritan culture.
In America, the period of Romanticism brought up many depictions of society that held their place in America many decades ago. This society was made up of Puritans who held a strong belief system and was even their form of governing. Romantic authors like Washington Irving, who wrote “The Devil and Tom Walker”, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who wrote The Scarlet Letter included Puritans in their stories to convey a message. In both works, the authors focus on Puritans in their stories to convey an image of who Puritans were and what they did, though not in a positive light through the use of the devil and the setting of a forest. This is because of how Romanticism generally satirized Puritans and tried to portray them as completely contradictory
Set in the Colonial American village of Salem in Massachusetts around the year of 1692, A Delusion of Satan opens by describing, in depth, the puritan lifestyle. Ranging from the social aspects, to the religious aspects, to the political aspects of puritan living, Frances Hill leaves no stone unturned in giving the most accurate and relatable descriptions of the topics at hand before diving into the trials themselves. I particularly enjoy the depth of description that Hill provides when giving you the background information such as the puritan lifestyle; without setting a strong foundation, certain things may not make sense further into the book.
During the early years of the colonies, there was a mad witch hunt striking the heart of Salem. Anger, reputation, and even religion play an important part during the play of The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller. The author allows us to witness the vivid idea of the hysteria taking place in Salem, Massachusetts, and why it was so vulnerable during the time.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter share remarkable parallels not only in their examination of early Puritan America, but also in the dilemma of the two main male characters, John Proctor and Arthur Dimmesdale. Both these men had sinful relations with another member of the town, and must deal with the adversity that resulted from their sin. Although both John Proctor and Reverend Dimmesdale become hypocrites in their society, Proctor overcomes his sin and is able to redeem himself, while Dimmesdale’s pride and untimely death prevent him from fully experiencing redemption.
Salem in the 1600s was a textbook example of an extremist society with sexist norms and no separation of church and state. Because it had no laws, only people considered authorities on law, it was always a society based on norms laid down by the first settlers and severity on the verge of madness. The power was imbalanced, focused subjectively in the people who had means to control others. Some people attempted to right the wrongs of the powerful, as people are wont to do eventually. Because of them, change indeed came to Salem, slowly and after excessive ruin and death. Before the rebels’ impact took hold, Salem’s Puritan society was a religious dystopian disaster, a fact illustrated excellently by Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. This religious dystopian disaster carried many flaws and conflicts that can be seen in other societies, both historical and modern.
The Crucible is set in a Puritan theocratic society, where every citizen is concerned with religious piety and purity. Thus, there is imagery tied in with biblical images when a character decides to lie or when a character decides to be honest. For example, when Proctor decides to confess his affair to the court he says, “A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you-see her what she is…” (II. 131-133). This quote from Proctor is riddled with references to God and the judgment God passes on Proctor’s actions. Proctor also repeats the references to God earlier in the play, when he tries to convince Elizabeth he is not guilty of having an affair with Abigail. Proctor says, “I have roared you down when first you told me your suspicion. But I wilted, and like a Christian, I confessed. Confessed! Some dream I had must have mistaken you for God that day” (II. 67-69). The repetition of the words “God” and “confession” reveals the connection Proctor places between being honest and having religious piety. On the other hand, when Abigail is deceitful, her quotes are surrounded by evil or devilish imagery. The devilish imagery can be seen when Abigail tries to persuade Betty and Mary Warren to lie about her actions in the forest. Abigail says, “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will pointy reckoning that will shudder you” (I. 131-133). The imagery of the “black of some terrible night” (I.10) and darkness relates back to devilish acts Abigail committed. Abigail can be seen as the evil in the play, as her decision to accuse others for committing witchcraft is the cause of the witch trials. Also, the forest, where Abigail drinks blood to condemn Elizabeth Proctor to death, is seen as a devilish area to many of the Salem
The Crucible is one of the most bizarre accounts of a historical event to date. The naïveté of the townspeople leads them down a road of madness and confusion, led by a shameless Puritan girl. Abigail Williams was a ruthless girl who showed no mercy upon accusing her victims of witchcraft. Knowing the entire town of Salem would believe her and the other girls, she would not hesitate at charging anyone she wished with the crime of the Devil’s work. However, a challenge arose to Abigail when she decided to accuse Elizabeth Proctor, and eventually her husband John, of witchcraft. The Proctor marriage was not just any simple marriage; it had its times of cold shoulders, heartfelt truth, and undying love.
Woman and family roles are considerably different today than they were back in Puritan times. Puritans thought that the public’s foundation rested on the “little commonwealth”, and not merely on the individual. The “little commonwealth” meant that a father’s rule over his family mirrored God’s rule over creation or a king over his subjects. John Winthrop believed that a “true wife” thought of herself “in [weakness] to her husband’s authority.” As ludicrous as this idea may appeal to women and others in today’s society, this idea was truly necessary for colonies to be able to thrive and maintain social order.
This two topics The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible are two literary words. The Scarlet Letter is nonfiction, however, The Crucible is drama along with a partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials. Both stories focused in the puritanism and arousing. “In the early severity of the puritan character, an inference of this kind could not so indubitably be drawn” (Hawthorne). That text foreshadows how strict people are from The Scarlet Letter. “The rumor of witchcraft is all about; I think you’d best go down and deny it yourself” (Miller). That statement is the evidence of how the people gossip and how strict they are about all this and also about unnatural activities and breaking law in that age of time.
While I'm sitting here at my computer, in my air conditioned home, with the radio blaring and the t.v. on downstairs, I try to imagine how life was as a young Puritan. To be honest, I don't think I could live a week the way they do. I could try but it would be excruciatingly difficult.
Portrayal of Puritan Society in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter In the introductory sketch to Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel the "The Scarlet Letter", the reader is informed that one of the author's ancestors persecuted the Quakers harshly. The latter's son was a high judge in the Salem witch trials, put into literary form in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" (Judge Hathorne appears there). We learn that Hawthorne feels ashamed for their deeds, and that he sees his ancestors and the Puritan society as a whole with critical eyes. Consequently, both open and subtle criticism of the Puritans' practices is applied throughout the novel.
The purpose of my paper is to compare and contrast Arthur Miller’s The Crucible with the actual witch trials that took place in Salem in the 17th Century. Although many of the characters and events in the play were non-fictional, many details were changed by the playwright to add intrigue to the story. While there isn’t one specific cause or event that led to the Salem witch trials, it was a combination of events and factors that contributed to the birth and growth of the trials. Some of these events included: a small pox outbreak that was happening at the time, the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter by Charles II, and the constant fear of Native attacks. These helped in creating anxiety among the early Puritans that they were being punished by God himself.
Throughout history, the Puritan community creates many different punishments offenders need to accept to live in the community. According to Michael J. Colacurcio, in 1695, the Salem colony enacts a law which requires women who commit adultery to sew a “capital A” on their clothing to point them out as adulterers (331). The Puritan colonies in the New World create a physical isolation of people who commit both heinous and moral crimes against the colony. Their strict belief structures cause them to punish all crimes almost equally, and leads to the isolation of the colonies by others who do not wish to associate with their actions. While the Puritan colonies make up a lot of America’s colonial history in New England, many people did not approve of their behavior and severe teachings. An example of this stems from Hawthorne, who sees the Puritan communities as hypocritical and also too harsh. Hawthorne uses the scarlet letter as a symbol for Hester, of her change and maturity, instead of her guilt and crimes: “many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able”(Hawthorne 10). The scarlet letter does not only represent an adulterer, but someone who overcomes the situation and moves on. Hawthorne’s rejection of the Puritan mindset through Hester shows how the Puritans do not accept many different things which leads to their own personal alienation. As they isolate outsiders and new ideas, the community further alienates