More than 80% of Americans have Puritan ancestors who emigrated to Colonial America on the Mayflower, and other ships, in the 1630’s (“Puritanism”). Puritanism had an early start due to strong main beliefs that, when challenged, caused major conflict like the Salem Witch Trials. Puritanism had an extremely rocky beginning, starting with a separation from the Roman Catholic Church. Starting in 1606, a group of villagers in Scrooby, England left the church of England and formed a congregation called the Separatist Church, and the members were called The puritans (“Pilgrims”).
Life before the infamous Salem Witch Trials was very mundane and normal. The village and society was based and founded on the Puritan religion. The people had a very set lifestyle. They were taught to work and pray. When they weren't working, they were praying.
The ideas constructed by the Puritans were not simply a principal starting point for American culture because they were the first in the country, but because they offered distinct ways of thinking that are still deep-seated in our culture today. Although many of the ideas of Puritans have evolved or vanished over time, it is important to give credit to the Puritan writers and thinkers such as John Winthrop and John Cotton who offered ideas that were new at the time and that stayed with the American consciousness—culturally, socially, and politically. “John Winthrop's legacy can be seen primarily in the fields of government, commerce, and religion. It was religion that would most impact John's life; his religion would ultimately impact the
I also have to say that I disagree that the Puritans identify with modern Christianity for a number of reasons. One reason is that the Quakers, unlike the Puritans, had more tolerance for the many different religious beliefs that individuals had. They also believed that each person experienced God directly for themselves. While I think there are people of today who still believe in the notion of predestination, the Quakers reflect modern Christianity in their beliefs and the way they treated everyone. In today's society, we have various freedoms and privileges, where back in colonial times, one would either be banished or executed if rules were broken or were considered ungodly.
I believe that the relationship between the British and Americans could not have been saved primarily because England had always had a big bully mentality; you better agree with me or suffer the consequences kind of approach. In actuality, that is exactly how the Puritan arrived in America. The Puritans were once people of political influences but soon were being persecuted; they preferred to follow the Bibles as guides to their daily lives instead of the King of England. It got to the point, the Puritans decided to face the dangerous journey to the New World in hopes of freedom to practice their religion in peace.
In the novel The Scarlet Letter, the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about the corruption in the Puritan community during the mid 1600s. “Even though they believed they could not earn salvation by righteousness, they rigorously sought to be righteous. ”(“About the Novel” 8). Appalled by their tenets he wrote The Scarlet Letter to demonstrate how there were a number of paradoxes within them and their lifestyles.
Is the United States still doing what they did back then? We now have different values and a new way of thinking. Over the years, our society has grown smarter. Although we still rely on outside assistance, we have progressed further than our Puritan half. The Puritans believed that the Bible was God 's true law, and that it provided a plan for living.
Hypocrisy in a Puritan Society The novel The Scarlet Letter proves that hypocrisy is a sin. It has been argued whether Hawthorne’s theme was adultery or hypocrisy. The motive of falsity is emphasized in the novel over what seems to be the keynote, adultery. There are many precedents of deception and deceit in this scholarly publication.
Puritan’s harsh beliefs represented the beginning of the Nineteenth Century in the newly colonized America. Their community ruled with an iron fist: unforgiving, pitiless, stern. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne expresses his disagreement with puritan priorities by revealing the hypocrisy widely practiced throughout their community. Hawthorne’s utilization of dim diction aids in the establishment of his scornful tone, while inclusion of symbols and intricate juxtaposition all serve to accentuate the Puritan’s duplicity. All these factors combine to develop a critical tone which rebukes puritan society.
Historic literature is at the mercy of the authors who write about their history. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hester is scolded for her adultery but through 7 years of penance, only then, she starts to be accepted into the Puritan town of Salem again. Puritan beliefs valued seeking salvation from God through acts of kindness and honor. However, the novel reveals the truth behind Puritan Society to the extent that keeps the reputation of the Puritans flawed but still righteous. Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays deceitful Puritan values through the meticulous choice of diction in his progressive novel The Scarlet Letter.
The Puritans were one of the first European settlers in the New World. After being persecuted for their religious beliefs in England, they sailed across the Atlantic in hopes of establishing a safe haven where they could practice their religion freely. Despite the fact that they were once victims of such intolerance, Puritan society was known for its cruel and unforgiving nature towards those who did not adhere to their beliefs. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne amplifies this irony by highlighting the inherent hypocrisy in Puritan society.
The power of good and evil fills humans. How we come about using which is argued upon by past ideologies. On one hand the Puritans, who had lived in the early settlement of the colonies around the 1600s, believed that the human use of good is out of fear of the consequence of their sins and the wrath of God (Lawson “Puritan Background”). The other known as humanism believes the nature of good comes from the wanting of helping fellow man and being a good person; humanism is popular from the days of founding fathers. The unique nature of humans and the way they behave cannot all be explained by just one theory; the way a human behaves is the combinations of all philosophies and sciences that mankind has created.
The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, functions as an evaluation of Puritan ideas, customs, and culture during the 17th century. Through this evaluation, we can get a good idea of what core values and beliefs the Puritans possessed, as well as the actions they take in cases of adversity brought about by “sinners”. Some Puritan virtues created stark divisions between groups of people, some of which led to discrimination under certain circumstances. One of the most prominent of these is the treatment and standards of men and women, a concept that surfaced during some of the major points in The Scarlet Letter. The divisions that were created by Puritan standards of men and women played a great role in shaping the plot of The Scarlet Letter, determining the fate of many of the characters.
The Scarlet Letter and Uses of the Puritan Past illustrate various aspects of the cultural values in Puritanism and their societal impacts. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne depicts Puritanism as a bleak, strict cultural instance in which people who do not conform to their rules are shunned and distanced from society. In Uses of the Puritan Past, Puritan culture is described as a social construct based on four primary virtues. These virtues were the main influence of Puritan activity in Uses of the Puritan Past, as they were responsible for the creation of social rules and essential morality resulting in increased power and influence of the Puritan over every day Puritan life in New England. Even though both The Scarlet Letter and Uses of the
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne effectively conforms to the conventions of the gothic genre for the purpose of characterizing the Puritan society as oppressive, portraying the hypocrisy found within the society and highlighting the consequences for not confessing
