Puritan

Not all colonists in New England were Puritans but the Puritan religion was a major influence on the establishment of the colonies. Puritans were not satisfied with the Protestant Reformation and believed that the Church of England had to many Catholic rituals. They believed neither the church nor the nation were living up to their ideals. In order to seek the truth they urged the people to read the Bible and listen to their sermons. Puritans followed the teachings of John Calvin in which…

The Puritans were a group of Christians who wanted to purify the Church of England. They settled in America where they made a new theoretical society. Because of the theocracy, the Puritans combined the church and the state. The authorities ran the community with no help from the people. The Puritans did not have a fair system for incrimination, and the authorities could make decisions that were not fair or just. In 1692, the Puritan community had a witchcraft epidemic. Many people were falsely…

The Puritans sought to purify, and strived to only partially reform the Church of England. They believed, whether they stated it or not, solely in social order and made that very clear by limiting the individual freedom of their followers. The Puritans read the Bible in a religious or continuous manner and interpreted every word literally. They believed in Calvinism, or predestination. Under predestination, it says that one is predetermined as saved or damned. Though the people of…

Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850 and inspired by his Puritan primogenitors in the 1630s. Because of his knowledge of the Puritans he is able to describe their strengths and portray their weakness as a colony and community. Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is his depiction of the Puritan society and its flaws. It is important to acknowledge that the characters Hawthorne introduces are based upon his Puritan ancestry because he develops them as his own representations of the…

“A Puritan Death: John and Thomasine Winthrop” Did a foundation in the Puritan faith have a bearing on how many European immigrants handled their day to day affairs and dealt with the many struggles they would face in life and death? This is a question answered by J. William T. Youngs in his article “A Puritan Death”, as we are given a glimpse into the lives of John and Thomasine Winthrop. Through account entries kept in a journal by John Winthrop himself, Youngs walks us through a vivid…

Essay #1 (what aspects of Puritan society in the 1692 enabled the witch trials to take place?) There are many different aspects of why the Puritans society had enabled the witch trials in 1692 some of them would have to be they had very strict beliefs on religion and would take manners very seriously when it came to discussing their everyday lives. Most of their beliefs would scare others and make a lifestyle hard. Throughout the story many examples of their beliefs were shown and will help you…

among 14,000 Puritans who fled England during the “Great Migration” of the 1630s in search of religious refuge. They wanted a place to practice “true” Christianity, contrary to their idea of the blasphemous practices of the Church of England. The colony of Massachusetts Bay was built to restore proper moral and religious practices for the sake of keeping the community holy and, in turn, in God’s favor. Anne Hutchinson devoted her life to being an extraordinary member of the Puritan church, even…

The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter is about a woman named Hester Prynne who lived in a Boston Puritan settlement in the seventeenth century. Her husband sends her to America to Boston with the thought that he would follow her, but he never arrives. In the meantime Hester has an affair and gives birth to a daughter, but she never tells anyone who the father is. Hester is punished for adultery. She has to spend three hours on a scaffold, and she must wear a scarlet letter “A” on her breast for…

Hawthorne creates a tripartite topography made up of the forest and wilderness, the Puritan Town, and the threshold. The forest and wilderness, composed of trees and a brook, embody freedom. The Puritan Town, which is filled with Puritans, the prison, and the scaffold, epitomizes rigidity and hypocrisy. The threshold, although relatively barren aside from a rose-bush and Hester’s cottage, signifies a boundary between Puritan Town and the forest and wilderness. Through the juxtaposition of…

societal critique of the Puritans. Hawthorne shows them as demonic hypocrites, especially high ranking members of the town. In addition to this, he uses language that recognizes, the sin-committing, Hester Prynne as the protagonist, while Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a pious man, is viewed as weak and afraid of the society that reveres him. The communal condemnation of Hester shows the Puritans as a singular character, rather than a society or culture, enabling the Puritans to act as a driving…