Should names and labels put on people always be believed? If these labels are believed, is the name always true? Puritans, as a collective people should be exactly as they sound, pure. The reality of their society, however, is not. Some may say that they are perhaps the most judgmental and unaccepting society to have ever lived in America. They are perceived to believe in a male-dominated patriarchal society, where women are to do as they are told, children are to be seen and not heard, and upholding the laws of the Bible is the most important rule in life. Defiance of any of these rules is absolutely not tolerated. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne a member of the Puritan society, is convicted of adultery, a sin she did not commit. Since
In Puritan society, citizens are to strictly adhere to set laws and instructions, or they risk being condemned to ‘an eternity in Hell’, as they put it. To understand as to why the Puritans are so conservative, one must first comprehend their origins. The Puritans are a sub-denomination of Christianity which left Europe to establish an orthodox society, purified of all corruption, that is also attributed, The City on the Hill. The Holy Bible,the ultimate (-- removed HTML --) , declares the manner in which an ideal Puritan is to act. Unfortunately, few of the Puritans who Arthur Miller portrays in “The Crucible”, a play that which describes the accounts of mass hysteria in a Puritan community named Salem , abide by the statutes enacted by God.
“Puritans were fundamentalists. They believed that every word in the Christian Bible was the true word of God and was to be followed by letter” (The DBQ Project). The accused were condemned at the end because no one would believe their cries and pleas, and they were unheeded. These trials, really, went on for quite a prodigious
It was against the law to speak out and have opinions, being expected to work hard was not out of the ordinary. Puritans were expected to live by a strict moral code. Believing that all sins should be punished. “They believed that God would be the one punishing for sins and bad behavior. Friends that suffered from loses, and misfortunes would not be helped by Puritans” (Marvel 73).
Religion was the main key to their whole way of life. Everyone followed the same rules of God and obeyed the town rules and went to church. Hawthorne understood the complexities of Puritanism. “Despite being a descendent of the Puritans, Hawthorne did not make himself the historian of Puritanism. He delivered it with force and gave the spirit and sentiment of its life, in an intense and powerful story which contains the very soul of its faith” (Kahhoul Imene).
The Puritans were Christian Protestants, so they relied heavily on the Bible and interpreted it literally. However, this means their fundamental perception of women comes from the book of Genesis, in which Eve betrays God first. Richard Goodbeer, author and professor at the University of Kansas, says it best: “Eve’s legacy as the female prototype was double-edged: on the one hand, she served as a successful helpmeet in the Garden of Eden; on the other, she was Satan’s first human ally.” When interpreted literally – as Puritans often did – a conclusion pulled from Eve’s actions could be that women are the most likely to succumb to the Devil, as it is in their nature. When put into the time of the Salem Witch Trials, this framing resulted in the idea that women should be the first to blame for witchcraft.
When you think of a Puritan society, what comes to your mind? Perfect, flawless, and a religion based on following God? Well, that is what it says on paper, but is it really that perfect? Throughout the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne jabs at the Puritans in an attempt to portray just how flawed they really are. After reading the book, you want to think that Hawthorne is telling the story of sinning in a Puritan society.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, a famous American author from the antebellum period, notices the emphasis on individual freedoms in the works by Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalists during his residency in the Brook Farm’s community. In response to these ideas, Hawthorne writes The Scarlet Letter, a historical novel about Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s lives as they go through ignominy, penance, and deprecation from their Puritan community to express their strong love for each other. Their love, even though it is true, is not considered as holy nor pure because of Hester past marriage to Roger Chillingworth, and thus Hester gained the Scarlet Letter for being an adulterer. Hawthorne utilizes biblical allusions, such as the stories of
With the Puritans having strict religious beliefs about the devil and God, it gave them strong feelings about the ways in which women impacted their community. Along with their religious beliefs, their society had certain beliefs about women and the way they should act which led them to suspect anything out of the “norm” as a sign of the devil. While some of this could be on women and the way we speak, the Puritans already had such strong feelings toward the vulnerable mind of women that it wouldn’t matter. The women were represented by weakness in nearly every aspect a person can be judged on and this thought of them as the weaker vessel is what ultimately led to them being accused and persecuted more than men during the Salem Witch
In the book, The Scarlet Letter, the author Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism to bolster the characters and to help the readers get a better understanding of them. Symbolism is used by writers to better relate to objects. Some examples of symbolism would be in chapter 7. These would have to include: Pearl/the scarlet letter, the sunlight on Governor Bellingham’s mansion, and the reflection within the suit of armor. These three examples are the most paramount to help to reveal the characters and to distribute Hawthorne’s message.
The appellation of the scarlet letter was completely useless. It had no purpose, everyone had already knew and witnessed her ignominy up on the scaffold. Even if new settlers had arrived, I am assuming the women of the town would gossip about it filling them in. Hester still would have slowly became the brave woman they all perceived her as at the end of it, with or without the scarlet letter. There has been a time when I was ostracized because of a single act, a harmless one in fact.
Punishment of Puritans for their sins occurred harshly and frequently, and these punishments ranged from fines, branding, and severe whippings to hanging and death. Many of these penalties involved public humiliation of some kind, which made it extremely difficult for townspeople to accept by their peers after they had sinned. Because the Puritans believed religion was immensely important, the community was often reluctant to allow citizens that exhibited sinful behavior to achieve redemption (Cox). However, in the case of Hester Prynne, an adulterer in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter, the townspeople eagerly made amends with her. This novel narrates the life of Hester Prynne, who committed adultery and courageously accepted the repercussions
Term gender role is described as a set of social norms of what types of behaviors are generally considered acceptable, appropriate or desirable for a person based on their sex ussualy centered around opposing conceptions of femininity and masculinity. Gender roles traditionally were often divided into distinct feminine and masculine gender roles, until especially the twentieth century when these roles diversified into many different acceptable male or female roles in modernized countries throughout the world. Gender roles are closely linked with gender stereotypes.
The exploration of societal pressures. Life can be separated into two equal parts totally independent from one another. The inner self, being the innermost thoughts and feelings of the individual, and the outer self, how the individual decides to conduct itself around the others in society. Often times one of these parts takes control of the other, suppressing its partner. The suppression is often not of equal frequency because of the obligation humans feel to be liked and to fit in causes the outermost self to be given the most thought and worry.
The Puritan society thinks that it was their job to punish people who committed crime severely because they believe they were doing god’s work. They persecuted Hester for committing adultery while they are blinded by
Essentially, Puritans are expected to follow a strict set of religious and moral guidelines from which their actions and morality are derived. According to Hall’s A Reforming People, these moral expectations first introduced by the pilgrims were the driving force behind the power that the Puritan ministry had over society: “Ministers and laypeople looked first to congregations as the place where love, mutuality, and righteousness would flourish, and second to civil society. …Alongside love, mutuality, and righteousness they placed another set of values summed up in the word “equity.” Employed in a broad array of contexts, the concept of equity conveyed the colonists’ hopes for justice and fairness in their social world.”