...Laws of Plymouth Colony In the article about laws of Plymouth Colony, the Puritans settled from the native England to the US, immigrated to begin with the new world – civilization. In the new world, I believe the role of the leader was the role model of keeping and maintaining simple life and separation from the world for Puritan societies. What it means to be a Puritan, and how its Puritans lived. The article was written between 1632 and 1682 about the laws about Puritans and a way of life from childbearing to local communities. Some of the laws were omitted. According to the date written, these chapters in the bible reflect upon expectations from communities where sometimes expectations were different. These dates also refer to the chapters...
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...without, all was gone except my life and I knew not but the next moment might go too.”(Edmund, 19) These were the words of Mary Rowlandson, a woman taken into captivity after Native Americans raided her colony, tortured and murdered the people of the land, and took Mary and a few others and turned them into slaves. Mary’s life was spared because she possessed the skill of sewing, and often sewed and knitted the Indians clothing. During her captivity she analyzed the way the Native Americans socialized and lived their everyday lives. The two worlds were polar opposites, and the way Native American women were treated was much different to the beliefs of Puritan ideology. Indian women even led army groups as large as 300 people; they were considered very strong. The women considered Mary to be weak, and treated her as such. In the Puritan world woman’s power was non-existent, and believes the women were around to serve the man, and their opinions and thoughts were not valued. “It was a solemn sight to see so many Christians lying in their blood, some here and some there, like a company of sheep torn by wolves. All of them striped naked by a company of hell-hounds, roaring, singing, ranting, and insulting, as if they would have torn our hearts out.”(Rowlandson, 9-10) While many of her townspeople were tortured and slaughtered, Mary was one of the few who survived and taken into captivity. Forced to be a slave to the Indians, she spent most of her time sewing clothing for them, also...
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...frenzy of speculative cases caused by the cries of witchcraft brought on by a group of young girls. Over a hundred people, especially widowed middle-aged women, were accused of performing witchcraft and were jailed, nineteen people were executed . The accusations that led to the Salem Witch Trials were brought on by a combination of preconceived knowledge on the topic, religious beliefs, and precocious imaginations. These accusations shed light on the natural human need to find explanations for misfortunes occurring during the time period and to justify themselves in a Puritan dominated society. In 1689, only three years before the events that occurred in Salem, a similar case of possession happened to the four children of John Goodwin of Boston. The children, the oldest aged thirteen and the youngest five, began displaying symptoms of a diabolical illness and caused the adults in the community to gather together to not only pray for the health of the children but to determine the cause of their illness. It was soon discovered that the eldest Goodwin child had an argument with the elderly women who did the family’s laundry and received harsh words and insults from the laundress . The accused was Mary Glover, a single woman who had emigrated from Ireland to New England. During her trial, Glover spoke in her native tongue, Gaelic and often whispered words. This was seen as characteristics of a witch in the eyes of the court. Soon after her execution Puritan minister Cotton Mather...
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...North American Literature 2014-2015. Individual Freedom restricted by Puritans. Analysis of Hester, Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. [Nathaniel Hawthorne; The Scarlet Letter] ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to analyze how Nathaniel Hawthorne deals with the theme of freedom focusing on the major characters such as Hester, Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. I argue that, there is a sign of individual freedom due to the fact that all the characters have the right to act in the way they do it but they will be always suppressed by the decisions of the Puritans. I also argue that, there is no collective freedom in terms of society because Puritanism restricts, punishes and judges individual actions. Key words: major characters, individual freedom, suppressed, no collective freedom. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, is constructed by the main themes of isolation and suffering. Moreover, sin and the Puritan law are narrowly connected, making the wish of freedom almost an impossible achievement. Over the course of the novel, Hester is the only one who truly manifests her right of individual freedom. However, she has been punished by the Puritan law, which considers her attitude as a threat to the Puritan community and its religion. Hester’s freedom starts since the moment she decides to carry her punishment in New England and not going back to England, where she could have lived a new life without feeling guilty. Furthermore, her self-determination...
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...These acts were highly against Puritan beliefs and caused an overwhelming amount of fear within Salem. While over 200 people were accused of being witches during the trials, a much smaller amount was executed for the crime. According to the scholarly journal titled, “The Aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials in Colonial America”, written by researcher Mark Callis, “The effects of the Salem Village witch trials were devastating: 141 people imprisoned, 19 people executed, and two more died from other causes directly related to the investigations” (187). Considering the population of 16th century Salem was likely to have been much smaller than Salem’s modern population, the amount of people brought to court for witchery was overwhelmingly high and made people feel that at any moment they might be accused. As also claimed by Callis, the executions specifically consisted of hangings (187). Puritans targeted women who were deviant, outcasts, and heretics during the trials due to their fear of Satan. Considering their view on the fragility of women’s souls, any woman who had a negative impact on Salem and did not adhere to the common structure of Puritan life was often mistaken for being involved with the Devil. By executing the women involved with Satan, Puritans believed they would keep their society pure and safe from...
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...Hawthorne uses characteristics to show American Romanticism. Throughout the parable, Hathorne continues to use symbols to create the theme. Hawthorne portrays romanticism by utilizing Mr. Hooper who chooses to wear a veil until death. The most important symbol in “The Minister’s Black Veil,” is the veil itself. The Puritan community feels uncomfortable seeing Mr. Hooper wearing the black veil, but Mr. Hooper believes everyone should wear one, thus creating American Romanticism. Throughout Hawthorne’s parable “The Minister's Black Veil,” he shows romanticism by addressing the reactions of the whole Puritan community and their concern about the wickedness of the black veil. Although the Puritan...
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...English colonists traveled to New England to gain religious freedom for many reasons. The colonists wanted to live in a place where they could be free to believe in their faiths. Even though the colonials wanted to escape religious persecution, they ran into many religious conflicts in New England. In spite of the difficulty, settlers cultivated a new society with advanced education. Many folks did not want to be forced into a religion. Therefore a group of Protestants called Puritans sought to reform and purify the Anglican Church. However, the Pilgrims wanted to separate from the church entirely. This conflict persuaded Pilgrims and Puritans to leave England in order to evade persecution. The Puritans soon established the...
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...HISTORY 1301 United States History: Discovery to 1876 Handout # The Folkways of the Distinct English Groups that Colonize America David Hacket Fisher author of Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1989) wrote his book to answer the great questions: “Where do we come from” Who are we? [and] Where are we going?” (Fisher. p. 3) “The answers to these questions grow more puzzling the more one thinks about them. We Americans are a bundle of paradoxes. We are mixed in our origins, and yet we are one people. Nearly all of us support our republican system, but we argue passionately among ourselves about its meaning. We live in an open society which is organized on the principles of voluntary action, but the determinants of that system are exceptionally constraining. Our society is dynamic, changing profoundly in every period of American history; but it is also remarkably stable. The search for the origins of this system is the central problem in American history. It is the subject of this book.”( Fisher. p. 4) The answer is to be found in the “folkways” which four specific groups of Englishmen brought with them to the New World. These folkways provide an empirical measure of the differences in their societies which have blended to form the “American way.” “The interplay of” the folkways of the four English speaking immigrant groups, especially their “ ‘freedom ways’ has created an expansive pluralism which is” peculiarly American. “That is the central...
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...artistic traditions and began to implement them in real life. Consequently, the earliest writings that emerged during the colonial period were religious tracts and historical essays. Thus, this paper presents the information on the role of religion in colonial American literature and discusses the works of colonial authors to analyze how their religious views shape their literary works, their styles, and their interpretation of historical and political events. To start with, for the Puritans of the Colonial Period, various creations were actually connected to their religious beliefs and views of God. The Puritans sailed to America in order to build their lives on biblical laws away from the rule of the old church. Severe Calvinists, they believed in the indisputable authority of God, predestination, original sin and the doctrine of the elect person, according to which the person is not the case, but only a handful of the grace of God saves the elect from eternal damnation. Puritans borrowed from the Bible, not only laws, but also literary style: simple, austere and impersonal. For example, Anne Bradstreet, a well-known colonial writer, began American...
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...Romero 1 Yahaira Yoceline Romero Mr. Gorman History 1301 09-24-2014 Reading Summaries: The Puritans and Sex by Edmund S. Morgan In 1630 Mr. Winthrop led a small group of Puritans to America and started a colony. Here in America, they could start a new life a new beginning, they could start all over "in a city upon a hill" and they did or at least attempted. The religious “Utopia”, the desire to be perfect or have a perfect colony but it was not possible because humans are weak. In this chapter of the book: Readings in United States History Vol. I, Edmund S. Morgan talks about what the puritans did and how sex caused a lot problems between colonies. He briefly describe the different situations and informs us, the readers what was the life of a puritan when it came about sex....
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...The Scarlet Letter Study Guide Published in 1850, The Scarlet Letter is considered Nathaniel Hawthorne's most famous novel--and the first quintessentially American novel in style, theme, and language. Set in seventeenth-century Puritan Massachusetts, the novel centers around the travails of Hester Prynne, who gives birth to a daughter Pearl after an adulterous affair. Hawthorne's novel is concerned with the effects of the affair rather than the affair itself, using Hester's public shaming as a springboard to explore the lingering taboos of Puritan New England in contemporary society. The Scarlet Letter was an immediate success for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the United States was still a relatively new society, less than one hundred years old at the time of the novel’s publication. Indeed, still tied to Britain in its cultural formation, Hawthorne's novel offered a uniquely American style, language, set of characters, and--most importantly--a uniquely American central dilemma. Besides entertainment, then, Hawthorne's novel had the possibility of goading change, since it addressed a topic that was still relatively controversial, even taboo. Certainly Puritan values had eased somewhat by 1850, but not enough to make the novel completely welcome. It was to some degree a career-threatening decision to center his novel around an adulterous affair (but compare the plot of Fielding's Tom Jones). But Hawthorne was not concerned with a prurient affair here, though the novel’s...
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...In the era of the New World, puritans wanted to “purify” the Church of England. Puritans had various forms of punishments for many things. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book, The Scarlet Letter, he sets the tone of his book in the old English Puritan days. Hawthorne describes one of the multiple puritan punishments that took place, he mainly focuses on the punishment for committing adultery. He ties it all together with the puritans’ beliefs, the effects it had on his life, modes of punishment, and crimes related to some in his book. Puritanism is a powerful political movement in the late 16th and 17th century that strived to “purify” the Church of England and thought they were pursuing God’s work (Gao 176). They believed that sinners could not...
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...Is sin between you and your God or is it a community affair? Many people tend to believe that society should be uninvolved in making decision about consequences of one’s action. The Puritans believe in an extreme form of religious law, and were very strict in enforcing it. In a specific matter that should solely have been between the Hester and her lover, they make the sinful women pay for her offense against the religion by involving the community. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’ reveals that women were treated unequally because their sin was turned into a communal affair by the Puritan Society. Hawthorne utilizes some stylistic devices to deliver his message effectively and powerfully. He uses literally elements such as setting...
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...casting a spell on Elizabeth Proctor. Abigail lies to conceal her affair, and to prevent charges of witchcraft. In order to avoid severe punishment for casting spells and adultery — not to mention attempted murder when she plots Elizabeth's death — Abigail shifts the focus away from herself by accusing others of witchcraft. This desperate act of self-preservation soon becomes Abigail's avenue of power. Abigail is the exact opposite of Elizabeth. Abigail represents the repressed desires — sexual and material — that all of the Puritans possess. The difference is that Abigail does not suppress her desires. She finds herself attracted to Proctor while working in the Proctor home. According to the Puritanical mindset, Abigail's attraction to Proctor constitutes a sin, but one that she could repent of and refuse to acknowledge. Abigail does the opposite. She pursues Proctor and eventually seduces him. Abigail's willingness to discard Puritan social restrictions sets her apart from the other characters, and also leads to her downfall. Abigail is independent, believing that nothing is impossible or beyond her grasp. These admirable qualities often lead to creativity and a thirst for life; however, Abigail lacks a conscience to keep herself in check. As a result, she sees no folly in her affair with Proctor. In fact, Abigail resents Elizabeth because she prevents Abigail from being with Proctor. Abigail gives new meaning to the phrase "all is fair in love and...
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...“Young Goodman Brown” Goodman Brown, the protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story entitling his name, seemingly is a firm believer in the doctrine and teachings of the Puritan religious faith. This belief system is unshakable in its certainty about the nature of humankind, and Brown himself appears to share an absolute sense of this belief system’s verities. He embarks on a mysterious mission one fateful evening, however, and from it becomes a recluse from his community of fellow believers, distant from involvement with all people, even his wife. Yet the ambiguous narrative that relates his forest experience promotes uncertainty, so much so that the unseen narrative voice calls into question whether Brown has actually lived the experience or has dreamed it, by which the narrator suggests a conjuring of the experience from his own imagination. What is clear, however, is that Brown is convinced that his experience has been real, with fateful consequences that change his life completely. In a researched response writing, address yourself to answering the following questions: 1. What does the Puritan faith teach its followers about the nature of humankind? 2. What importance does the supernatural have within the Puritan belief system? 3. What connection do you find between the Puritan religion, the Salem witch trials, and the story? 4. What is the story’s central theme? Research for this assignment may be done exclusively on the Internet, though other...
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