Essays on Puritan Society

The first century of the Massachusetts Puritan colony and the three generations of people that lived in it take on a different view when seen through the perspective of sport in Puritan society at that time. As the article argues, the efforts made by historians to succinctly and sufficiently analyze the role of sport were hardly successful because of the personal bias and perspective of the sources historians relied on in their research. Taking the Puritan society in Massachusetts Bay as an example, the article suggests that sport can be used in order to observe the changes in institutional ...

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is one of the most famous novels by the American romantic writer. While the novel is well-known for its depiction of the relationships between the characters, and the romantic plots and subplots, the novel also has great value as a historical study of the Puritan period. Puritan society was a highly gendered society, with strict gender roles for men and women, and a well-established patriarchal society. Explorations of the novel, and of the depiction of Hester’s character, her punishment, and her actions in the novel can help reveal whether Hawthorne was realistically ...

Romanticism is an element that has played a crucial role in the development of literature from the 18th century. This philosophy has had a noticeable effect on many literature works including Nathaniel’s The Scarlet Letter. It is easy to identify its influence in the novel because it is very clear that Nathaniel Hawthorne was a supporter of romanticism and that is the reason he presents many issues with the philosophy of romanticism in the novel. The Scarlet Letter is a gothic romanticism novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne during the romanticism period. The book features the story of two ...

American Past

Bridget Bishop was the first woman to be hanged during the well-known Salem due to accusations that she practiced witchcraft. The case against Bridget Bishop includes deposition taken mainly from lay people who came forward to accuse the Bishop Bridget of witchcraft. She had some of classic attributes that made her New England neighbors to incline being associated with the witch. She was alienated from the religious faith of the community because she never attended worship services. Moreover, she ran a tavern where excessive drinking and game playing were common. She was seen as embodying relaxed sexual traits because deponents ...

“In giving her existence, a great law had been broken; and the result was a being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder, or with an order peculiar to themselves, amidst which the point of variety and arrangement was difficult or impossible to be discovered” (Hawthorne, Chapter 6 p. 98). The quote above generalizes Pearl’s character. She was the daughter of Hester Prynne, a woman living in the standards of the Puritan society condemned by the people as ‘brazen hussy’ who bears the scarlet letter ‘A’ fantastically embroidered upon her bosom (Hawthorne, Chapter 2 p. 57). ...

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is the narrative of a fallen woman whose story is not the result of her own innate character, but of social forces which execute their power upon her and the subsequent transformations that these forces evoke. Thus, the personal opinion of this reader is that Hester Prynne truly is a courageous heroine who, prone to flaws like all human beings, makes a choice, which changes her life forever. Whether it was a wrong choice or a feat any of us would endeavor upon is questionable, because as it was said, it is not so much Hester’s instinctive ...

The Puritans of the 17th century remained an extremely patriarchal people; their primary goals were to glorify God and place their earthly passions behind them, all the while placing men in positions of authority, leaving women little choices for activities and positions (Bremer, 1976). The works of Anne Bradstreet, a Puritan author and poet of the 17th century, are extremely indicative of these themes, particularly the poem "The Prologue." In this essay, the poem will be analyzed in depth in relation to its historical setting, themes, concepts and ideas/images. In "The Prologue," Anne Bradstreet attempts to exemplify feminist concepts of ...