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Puritan time and the salem witch trials
Response to transcendentalism
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Recommended: Puritan time and the salem witch trials
Imagine living in fear of everything you never heard of and doesn’t follow your beliefs. Feels bad doesn’t it? Back in the 1600s, people from Europe sailed to Massachusetts in look for land to practice religion. A majority of these pilgrims were Puritans who followed the Bible strictly and feared everything that wasn’t common which led to ridiculous claims for what was happening. Making stories is something that has been happening since people could tell each other stories before science had explained the occurrences. Native Americans had many stories that would explain things that happened everyday and in nature. Puritans had a somewhat similar reason for making these types of stories. They used religious characters in these stories and the main figure, other than their god, would be the devil . Since the Puritans were in fear of the uncommon, it would lead to major reactions and a strict lifestyle. Puritans were scared of anything uncommon and having governments built on theocracies made things worse because the religiously strict lifestyle was forcibly assembled into everyday life.
According to the education department of the Salem Witch Museum, the Salem Witch
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In the story, all the people who moved from Europe were not necessarily Puritan. The main character, Hester Prynne, was supposedly Puritan but acted differently than how the others acted in the book, Hester is what they call an adulterer and was rejected from the society by having to wear the letter A on her clothing. Hester showed she was not like the others. From the story we can see that she might have been a Transcendentalist. Transcendentalism was a new type of Christianity led by Ralph Waldo Emerson, an english lecturer, and was the leader of spreading this new religion. This version of Christianity was not as strict as the Puritan ways and had satisfied people's religious and spiritual
Miller Edwards,Hawthorne and korning each show how religion was a sin in puritan cultures and affected many people’s lives that punishment will come when you have disgraced your religion that good is against the devil there is a strict form of puritan. Puritans were dedicated to work to save themselves from the sins in the world. Guilt was a great force in the puritans belief. The people in the story are Puritans a religion often depicted because of its rules and severe punishments to those who sin. The puritans left england to avoid religious persecution they established a society in America founded upon religion intolerance, Up surprising result the church dominates the Puritan culture.
Edmund S. Morgan's book, "The Puritan Dilemma", is an account of the events encountered by John Winthrop's mission of creating a city on a hill. Winthrop leads and directs the Massachusetts Bay Company, to the new world, while trying to find a solution to the Puritan dilemma, which was how they were going to live in the world while trying to live up to the ideals in the Bible. These ideals lead John Winthrop to propose the creation of a “city on a hill”. His proposition involves reforming the Church of England, in the new world, by purifying the church of all its flaws. It would create a citadel of God’s chosen people, the kind of society that God demanded of all His servants. According to Winthrop, "They should be purified of their unregenerate members, their heretical clergymen, their unwarranted ceremonies, their bishops, and archbishops, but they were nevertheless churches and must be embraced as churches". (Morgan, 27) Winthrop continues to emphasize that they have been selected by God, like Israel of old, to serve as a model society to others; they would be a “city on a hill” for everyone to see and observe.
In England, the Puritans were a group of Protestants, who during the 1600 wanted to continue to purify the Church of England of the practices that were not found in scripture . They wanted to leave from being persecuted for not being protestants. The Separatists were people who advocated complete separation from the Church of England and make their own churches. Both the Puritans and the Separatists wanted to and did leave Europe in hope to be able to have religious freedom in North America. While they were in North America the Puritans were in charge. They kept a very controlled and disciplined lifestyle. They slept in tents and dug out then later learned how to make huts from the Swedish.
Purpose of Paper: How the Puritan religious movement had a profound impact on America’s founding
While I'm sitting here at my computer, in my air conditioned home, with the radio blaring and the t.v. on downstairs, I try to imagine how life was as a young Puritan. To be honest, I don't think I could live a week the way they do. I could try but it would be excruciatingly difficult.
Unlike today, women in the 1850’s did not have rights to do many things. Women had limited freedom, but Hester Prynne stood up for her rights and beliefs. Not only she was a feminist character in book, but also the people and their cultures and religion made her that way. In the book, it says that she is beautiful, tall, thin, and dignified woman. She is also said to be good with decorating and making clothes and helps the poor by donating clothes to them. She is not a woman who just sins and be proud of herself. Throughout the story, Hester Prynne tries not to sin and penitent what she did and helps...
The Puritans were English Protestants, mostly Protestant extremists, who fled England to escape religious persecution. Most were raised with extremely strict morals and values. Puritans were also known as “Precisionists” for being precise in their sermons and studies. The process in which Puritanism developed was primarily caused by King Henry VIII; he transformed the Church of Rome into a state of The Church of England. In outrage, angered English men and women were determined to continue their faith and way of life; this just so happened in the New World. Across the pond, this region became commonly known as “New England”. The puritan people were distinguished by the clothes they wore and their opposition the episcopal system. Now-a-days most people would think the Puritan way of life would be radical by any sorts. What the Puritans did in their era was completely and utterly wrong, as we now know. As we look back on their way of life, most come to not respect the people as a whole.
Puritanism as a religion declined, both by diluting its core beliefs and by losing its members. This phenomenon was at work even in colonial days, at the religion’s height, because it contained destructive characteristics. It devolved into something barely recognizable in the course of a few generations. We can observe that the decline of Puritanism occurred because it bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction.
After analyzing the assorted Puritan texts, including The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, it can be easily seen that the Puritans attempted to legislate morality in many of their laws. These ideas, established in pre-18th century time after the first Puritan unrest (history.com), flowed down through the progression of countries and societies. Today, by simply ‘reading between the lines,’ it has become evident that those Puritan viewpoints have been transported through time and are still present, even in the structure of certain modern laws. However, the expansiveness of the change that has occurred since the initial laws being instated, it might be time that they get revised. Although there are some well-structured and quite successful laws
In the novel The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is mainly a transcendentalist. The term transcendentalist coined in nineteenth century America, describes an optimistic person who fully lives in the present and has faith in the future. He or she loves nature, sees God in nature, and believes we are all connected. A transcendentalist takes action, and is honest and very individualistic. To me that clearly explains Hester Prynne's personality and beliefs. She is a confident, hopeful woman who never seems to let anyone get her down, which tells me that she is Hawthorne's transcendentalist, living in a Puritan America.
The greatest influence on all of Hawthorne's literature is the cultural and religious impact of Puritanism, a religious movement with a long history. During the 16th century, the Anglican Church was formed separate from Catholicism. Many English citizens at the time felt that this was a significantly drastic change. However, the religion still behaved similarly to Catholicism, much to the chagrin of the English protestants. The Church "retained much of the liturgy and ritual of Roman Catholicism and seemed, to many dissenters, to be insufficiently reformed" ("Puritanism" par. 1). After the formation of the Church of England, those Protestants who did not convert were prosecuted by the rest of the public, and the government. One such group was the Puritans, an extremely Protestant group who emphasized strong and literal adherent to the bible and its teachings. Because of their obsession with exact adherence and interpretation, many were derogatorily referred t...
The "human tenderness" Hester exerts shows how she did not care what the Puritans thought and acted. Her sin is also an example of her independence; Hester acted on her feelings and didn’t allow the Puritan’s views to interfere with her emotions.
The Puritans stressed grace, devotion, prayer, and self-examination to achieve religious virtue while including a basic knowledge of unacceptable actions of the time; this was expected to secure order and peace within the Puritan community. The Puritan culture is one that recognizes Protestantism, a sect of Christianity. Though a fundamental of Christianity is forgiveness for one's sins, this seems to have been forgotten amongst the women of the community: "Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fiber in those wives and maidens of old English birth and breeding, than in their fair descendants. " As we read between the lines we can notice a concern in Hester's acceptance within the Puritan community. More so, Hester senses a lack of acceptance within the circle of women in the community.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s feelings towards the Puritans, though already very clear, are portrayed vividly in his novel, The Scarlet Letter; particularly through his use of both religious and natural imagery. Hawthorne’s use of religious imagery is seen when Hester Prynne is at church. While she is there she is ridiculed because she committed the sin of adultery. Even though the other Puritans that ridiculed her had sinned themselves they still had the nerve to look down upon Hester as a sinner. Hawthorne shows in this scene how hypocritical the Puritans truly are. They scold Hester without even realizing that they too, are sinners. Religious imagery is used yet again when the women of the story don’t allow Hester, a seamstress, to make or even touch their wedding dresses.
The puritans were a group of settlers that came to America in the 1620’s from the Netherlands. They had previously immigrated from England to the Netherlands to escape their idea of religious intolerance and the form of Protestantism that was practiced. They also believed that England was a place of sin and was damaging their children. The Puritans left the Netherlands for Virginia for the same reasons and to reform the Church of England a little over a decade later. Slowly more and more members made their way to America in search of purification of the church. Although the main reason for coming to the New World was to escape religious rigidity of England and to create a utopian society based on the true teachings of the bible, the puritans had created a society that was just as unrelenting as the religious and political practices that they had left. The Puritans wanted to be a society that would set an example to others by honoring god and living a moral life, and while they did create a society that flourished economically and politically, their religious views lead to that of intolerance and inequality.