Civilization In The Puritan Society

America’s history is rich with literature. The beginning of American literature dates back to the Colonial times, but that began way before the colonists even stepped foot in America. There are three major groups of people from the colonial period that impacted literature. That is the Native Americans, Puritans, and the Rationalists.

Puritans and reformers of seventeenth century England have been given a bad name for their part in history. This is primarily because they were working against the grain and trying to create change in world that saw change as a threat. The time period was turbulent and there was bound to be resistance in a world that was dominated by Catholics and those that had reformed to abide by their King’s law. The puritans of the time were considered extreme and rubbed people the wrong way because they wanted a world that abided by their morals and ethical codes. For this, they took the blame for the misery that many suffered during this age, but as we see in Fire from Heaven, this is not a fair assessment. The Puritans of this time wanted to improve the lives of the people and society as a whole through morality and purity.

There is a Powerade advertisement on television that says, “We’re all just a kid from somewhere.” It means that no matter what one does in life, everyone starts off in the same spot. While this is true for today, it can also be applied to the foundational Puritan roots of this country. In 1629 when the Puritans first arrived in Salem, Puritans began to broaden their influence throughout the new world. Similarly to the advertisement, most of American society began with the same Puritan disciplines and beliefs, and some of the iconic Puritan standards can still be detected in regions of America today. The article “Still Puritan After All These Years,” claims that Puritan ideas can still be seen in American life. This statement is completely true because Puritan values and ideals are extremely visible in modern America.

Puritanism is often compared to Western European culture since America was largely founded on the exportation of Puritans from Europe. Puritans then maintained their relevance by making up the vanguard of frontier towns in the push West. Their motivation for that was that fleeing the non-Puritan "sinners" who made up second wave settlers who moved into Puritan towns. Despite that mobility, or their opinions of the later settlers, the Puritans undeniably left their mark in the towns they had originated. When making the comparison of American and Western European culture, it is commonly accepted that Americans are more reserved in their media content. For example, there can be much more nudity in advertisement in France than America. This disparity is typically attributed to the Puritan influence. The idea of Puritans living through religion and government has had a tremendous impact on American society nearly 4,000 years later.

Now imagine being a young girl growing up in a society such as this. You were basically viewed as a temptation and therefore evil, your parents basically owned you, and while you would eventually grow up and move somewhere else that didn’t always solve the problem. You were still a woman and therefore a temptation to men, and an instrument of Satan. These young girls grew up with no say in anything other than who they married. They were told who they were, what they were to do, and how they would act. In short the Puritans stereotyped women as evil.

During the 17th century, a Puritan commonwealth presided over Boston and was known for its strict adherence to religious, moral and social codes. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes rhetorical strategies in order to denounce the Puritan system of beliefs and bring to light the hypocrisy of the Puritan community as he tells the agonizing story of a young woman who was condemned by society.

Seventeenth century Puritans had several aspirations, successes, and failures when it came to creating a model society. They had many successes in their society, some examples are their education system, their advancements in equality for women, and the way they created a tight knit close society. Although they had many achievements, the Puritans also did fall short in many aspects of their society. They ultimately did fail at their perfect society, and that is a very important aspect since that was their main goal. They also were very strict about their policies regarding the church. Once the generations progressed, they had to create new rules to allow people basic religious rights such as baptism. They also fused church and state, which was necessary in a society such as this, but it ultimately hindered progression such as allowing non church members to vote. As the years progressed more and more non Puritans entered the Puritan society, this hindered society because eventually the small majority was making the most riveting decisions. Ultimately the Puritans had both failures and successes when attempting a model society, but the weight of the failures simply outweighed the successes.

The Puritans view of education the same way they viewed religion. It was a major part of their daily routine. The puritans had different ways of teaching their children, they used the New England Primer, which was one of the first books to be published in the 18th century. They used this to teach the children how to read and write properly. This book also taught the children the difference of right and wrong, along with the respect of parental figures, sin and salvation.

The natives were most impacted by this killing as over twice as many of their people were slaughtered than the Puritans. The natives were slaughtered and mutilated by these puritans whose beliefs system varied so much from their own. Even as they had different views both valued the collection a proper burial of their dead, however, the natives completed theirs with more efficiency. After many battles, the natives would carry as many of the dead as was possible for varying reasons. It was a well thought out military tactic as the Puritans would then have to guess how many had been slain to report to their eastern counterparts. If the Puritans could only estimate the body count it would distance the trust given to them by the English rulers.

When the Puritans came to New England, they came to settle with a clear society in mind. Not only would this society be free from the persecution that they endured in Old England; it would be free to create what the leader of the religion referred to as a "perfect" society. In their attempt to escape the persecution they had come so accustomed to, they set up their own rigid belief system based on the inclusion of the human soul and the exclusion of everything else as being unimportant (Wolff 14). The belief system of the Puritans allowed for several different types of theologies, two of which are the Covenant theology and the Paradise theology.

In the new colony, Puritans could make and enforce their own laws. These laws included things such as; Meeting houses in the middle of villages, children were required to go to school to be able to read the bible, and many other laws they saw were necessary in their community. They established their government as a theocracy, meaning there was no separation in religion and state. Puritans also enforced anyone living on their land to have the same religious beliefs or they were not allowed to own land. This caused issues between the ingenious people living in the area, such as small tribes including; Wampanoag, Pequot, Nipmuck, and the Massachuset. They saw the Native-Americans living in the area as inferior but were convinced they could convert

Over all, the earlier Puritans were vary religion centralized throughout their culture and wanted to uphold themselves as "a city upon a hill" for other colonists and incoming settlers, a quote from John Winthrop, page 101 paragraph 2, but that also got them in trouble with the Natives since the newcomers would steal from them in the name of "God" which didn’t really blow over that well let alone how the voyagers treated the Natives in general but all around it took much time and elbow grease to get settled in their new land.

As she was growing up all she saw was people look at her like she’s a demon and shouldn’t be there. Another way it affects her behavior occurs when they ridicule her mother also and I feel like that may be one of the main contributors to her behavior. But i want to know why do the puritans act the way they do?, and I also want to look at how does society affect her behavior. Because in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel

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.

Because of the nature of the Puritan culture outside of the novel, Hawthorne chooses an aspect of Puritan extremism that does not necessarily typify itself with every Puritan; that aspect would be mindless following. Throughout the work, Hawthorne effectively paints the “picture” that is the Puritan mindlessness. There are two ways that Hawthorne depicts this – the first focusing on the Puritans’ response to sin and the second focusing on the view of their leaders. Illustrating the first example, if someone commits adultery, they are either to be branded or killed; the latter happening much more frequently than the former. In a much broader sense, the Puritans are not in the least bit forgiving, and this can be seen with how the community treats Hester throughout the entire story; even though she was not killed or branded, they still constantly abuse her emotionally and mentally whenever they see the Scarlet Letter on her clothes. Shifting focus from the Puritans’ response to sin to the way that they view their religious leaders, Hawthorne illustrates this aspect of the Puritan community by using ambiguity and constant implications whenever the community is mentioned. An example of this is seen in how the community treats Arthur Dimmesdale. The community is seen idolizing Dimmesdale at points, even when he is clearly in the wrong; the community even took