Puritans may have tried to give themselves the appearance of a perfect society, but it was really just as corrupt and full of sinners as any society today. In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Crucible by Arthur Miller and “To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet, there is evidence for this. In Puritan literature, although they try to hide it, sin is very common, in that Puritans do the opposite of what they preach, but still harshly punish those who sin.
Affairs are a common sin with the Puritans that cannot be kept secret, because of the Puritan stress on faithfulness and love in marriages and the negative view of divorce. Affairs are bountiful in Puritan society; even a minister, one who preaches sin, commits adultery. While Dimmesdale is talking about Hester, he says, “Neither can I any longer live without her companionship; so powerful is she to sustain-so tender to sooth” (Hawthorne 191). Not only did the minister commit this sin in the first place, but Dimmesdale is going to renew his affair, even though as a priest, he obviously knows it is against God’s will. Puritans try to hide adultery in order to seem sinless, and fit into the Puritan mold, but it is most often discovered. It becomes apparent that Elizabeth knows of her husband’s unfaithfulness when she asks, “John, if it were not Abigail that you must go to hurt, would you falter now? I think not” (Miller 54). Elizabeth is obviously aware of her husband’s disloyalty but even if it pains two people to stay married, they will not get a divorce, because that is against Puritan beliefs. Although, adultery is also against Puritan beliefs, but that doesn’t stop some sinners. These affairs are often discovered because Puritans so strongly believe in...
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...s sin secret and continue to be seen as a perfect sinless Puritan. The Puritans sin in attempt to clear their sin, which just contributes to deeper disobedience to God.
The Puritans might have had rules that made them seem superior to other societies, but they were not any better than anyone else. They are similar to the U.S. today, in having their systems, the way their society is supposed to work, and their culture, the way it actually works. The systems and the cultures should be the same, which is what would make the Puritans, or the United States be the perfect society. In reality though, there is a gap, and it makes the society almost worse for it, for having standards that it cannot meet and for preaching rules it does not follow.
Works Cited
Scarlett Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Crucible, Arthur Miller
"To My Dear and Loving Husband", Anne Bradstreet
In the provocative article, Were the Puritans Puritanical?, Carl Degler seeks to clarify the many misconceptions surrounding the Puritan lifestyle. He reveals his opinions on this seventeenth century living style, arguing that the Puritans were not dull and ultra-conservative, but rather enjoyed things in moderation. They had pleasures, but not in excess. The Puritans could engage in many pleasurable and leisurely activities so long as they did not lead to sin. According to the article, the Puritans believed that too much of anything is a sin. Degler writes about the misconceptions of Puritan dress, saying that it was the “opposite of severe”, and describing it as rather the English Renaissance style. Not all members of Puritan society
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
First of all, Puritans believed that as an effect of Adam and Eve’s original sin, every person is born a sinner. For starters, in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, although it was written in 1952, he went through extreme
The puritans were very religious. They wanted to show everyone what happens if you are good and believe in god and the heavens. If you do bad things you would be punished or be killed. If you do good things you can be hand chosen to go to heaven.
The Puritans didn't have all the luxuries we have today. They were told many things by preachers such as Jonathon Edwards, who lit a candle of fear in their minds. If I was alive to hear Edwards preach, I'd certainly have to question myself. He preached that God holds us in his hands and he can make or break us. If God decides it so, he will let us go and we will fall from his hands to nothing but Hell. Certainly no one wants to go to Hell. So, the Puritans tried to better their lives, and go by rules or "resolutions." They believed if they followed these resolutions, even though their fate was predetermined by God, they could live a life of good and maybe prove they are meant to go to Heaven.
A sin during the mid 1600’s is quite different than a modern one. For example, in the 17th century people believed that defying a rule of God makes the culprit worthy of being publicly shamed or even killed. Now, sin does not have nearly the same impact for if a person disobeys God they can confess to their priest and be forgiven of their sins. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the concept of sin in a Puritanical community during the mid 1600’s in Boston, Massachusetts. Here, religion is a focal point in many citizens lives and religious freedom is one of the primary reasons the puritans came to America from England. The novel begins with Hester Prynne, a single mother just being released from prison, who is seen as an adulterer.
The church and Christian beliefs had a very large impact on the Puritan religion and lifestyle. According to discovery education, “Church was the cornerstone of the mainly Puritan society of the 17th century.”( Douglas 4). Puritan laws were intensively rigid and people in society were expected to follow a moral strict code. And because of Puritans and their strict moral codes, any act that was considered to go against this code was considered a sin and deserved to be punished. In Puritan theology, God h...
“Jumping to conclusions is like playing with wet gun powder: both likely to go off in wrong direction.”-Charlie Chang. The puritans were a group of English Protestants who adhere to strict religious principles and oppose sensual enjoyment. The puritans had a strong belief that the Devil could be walking among them at anytime. Due to this belief, the puritans believed that people could sign there souls away to the devil. By signing their souls away to the devil, a person could become a witch or wizard. In Arthur Millers’ novel The Crucible, the puritans go on a hunt to rid their town of witches. The puritans also had a big emphasis on how one would act in society. For example, if one didn’t go to church often, the people would be very suspicious about that one. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister’s Black Veil”, the puritans become suspicious of others because of a strange event. The strange events lead the puritans to mistrust and reject each other. In both of Hawthorne’s short stories “Young Goodman Brown” and “The Minister Black Veil” and in Miller’s The Crucible, a strange event makes the puritans jump to conclusions of witchcraft.
The world of Puritan New England, like the world of today, was filled with many evil influences. Many people were able to withstand temptation, but some fell victim to the dark side. Such offences against God, in thought, word, deed, desire or neglect, are what we define as sin (Gerber 14).
Puritans believed in strict religious dedications, by trying to follow the holy commandment. “The discipline of the family, in those days, was of a far more rigid kind than now.”(Hawthorne 9). They wanted to be considered the holiest of all people because they try to reflect a world of perfection in the sight of God. While they where trying to portray a holy life; however, they where also living a sinful life because they have been judgmental, slandering, uncompassionate, resentment, and forbearing, which are all sinful acts of the bible.
The play The Crucible is set in a puritan society; a society which is a theocracy, where priests and church figures have all the power. Abagail; a servant girl becomes the antagonist of the story. Abigail’s character is the victim of the Puritan society in which she rebels.
Puritans are generally viewed as religious extremists. Their religious beliefs were extended to all areas of life, and were zealously enforced. This is true for the most part, especially the way they conducted themselves publicly. They believed in public piety to the extent that once, “a young married couple was fined twenty shillings for the crime of kissing in public” (Kennedy, 45). This couple was already married, so one can imagine the people would come to feel that rules like this served no purpose. As Albion’s Seed reads, Puritans “believed that costume should not be a form of sensual display” (140). Their finickiness even included their refrain from wearing the color black because it was too stylish for anyone but the elect. It would be difficult to see how this relates to any scriptural laws of God, therefore, one can imagine how people would grow tired of such pointless restrictions on every trivial choice and action.
This was a red flag towards England and its church. Puritans believed that God already had already planned if you were destined to go to heaven or hell by the time you were born. They thought that if they just lived a normal "moral life", that would be suitable and nothing one did would change Gods decision on where they were destine to go. They also challenged the that the England church would sell purgatory slips. With the purchase of these slips, or passes, one could buy their way into heaven and or clear themselves or another person of the sins they had committed during their lifetime. Puritans did not agree with the false se statement tat the church was making to the people about being able to clear their sins and get into heaven. They believed that if a person was chosen to go to heaven, then it would show in their character and in their way of
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 Puritans believed that the Bible was God's true law, and that it provided a plan for living. The established church of the day described access to God as monastic and possible only within the confines of "church authority". Puritans stripped away the traditional trappings and formalities of Christianity which had been slowly building throughout the previous 1500 years. Theirs was an attempt to "purify" the church and their own lives.