She takes His justness a step further by saying in lines 18 and 19 that even if He took all of her belongings, it would still be reasonable. Bradstreet also believes in a positive afterlife for herself and most people around her. Since God is just, one must follow His will and then they will have a good afterlife. One
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.” (Hall, 127). This idea of a fair and just society was the centerpiece of Puritan society, and it subsequently led to the virtue of community over the individual which was previously discussed. When it comes to The Scarlet Letter, the ideology that Puritan morality is fundamental to everything is truly front and center.
Because Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress as an allegory rather than a novel, Christian is not represented as particularly complicated or conflicted and has a simple personality. Christian represents just one profound aspect of the human experience: the search for religious truth. He is his faith (hence his name). Christian’s motivation, the search for salvation in the Celestial City, clearly defines him. Christian is deeply goal oriented.
The Puritan colonies in New England were characterized by a church centered society. In England, the Puritan Christians desired to purify the Church of England. They did not agree with how the church system seemed corrupted by Catholic values and theology. Following the lead of John Calvin, the Puritans believed in the
The Puritans were plaster saints. In other words, they considered themselves humans without failings. Puritans are primarily remembered for their devout faith, their repressive religious code, and their repressive and violent attitudes towards women and children. The Oxford English Dictionary confirms these attributes by stating, “A Puritan is a person who practices or who is characterized by extreme strictness or austerity in religion, morals.” Their extreme moral code caused the Puritans to have a sense of superiority to anyone who was not following their lifestyle. John Winthrop summarizes what he believes are the statutes of what Puritans should live by in, “A Model of Christian Charity.” Winthrop’s writings are based on his interpretation of bible scriptures.
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.
For example, at one point, even Christmas was banned because they felt it represented England too much (Danko 1). Along with Christmas they also banned gambling and other similar activities and holidays. If someone was caught participating in one of the outlawed activities, they would have to pay a fine (Danko 2). By doing this, the Puritans were getting rid of religious freedom, which is exactly what they fled England to have. Historian John Demos explains, “Throughout the seventeenth century, the Puritans in Plymouth Colony had a steady succession of trials and convictions for sexual offenses involving single persons.
They were strictly condensed through religious studies in order to lean how to read and write. They had no sense of privacy throughout their childhood and no freedom. Most wore the same clothes as they were portrayed as the same status of intelligence. Commonly, puritans believed that well and behaved educated children would make a connection of purification though god, themselves, their relatives and the rest of the puritan
The established church was known as the Church of England. In England, the clergy and the government mediated the relationship between God and the individual. The Puritans believed that the relationship between God and the individual should be an intense spiritual relationship. The Puritans’ goal was to “purify” the Church of England. Due to the differences in belief, the Puritans left the Old World escaping
Behind every act of kindness lurks a selfish motivation. The Puritans were a religious sect in 17th century New England who believed in predestination or the belief that God had prior knowledge about each person’s fate in the afterlife. A core ideal of the Puritan religion was the principle of humanity being essentially evil and only doing good for others out of fear for God’s wrath or for selfish benefit. On the other end of the spectrum, is the humanists of the 18th century, many of which were America’s founding fathers. The humanists believed in the good of humanity and the concept of a loving, non-interfering God, a concept called Deism.