Puritans

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Puritans

• Home Massachusetts
• Time Period 1600s

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Religion in 1600s

• Believed good and evil spirits around at all
  times.
• Martin Luther Pestilence, fever and other
  severe diseases are naught else than the Devils
  work.

• Believed God was sovereign over Satan.
• There was an over emphasis on the supernatural
  because religion had been becoming too rational.

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European Witch Trials

• Witches had been executed in Europe for over 300
  years.
• Torture was used to gain confessions
• Thousands were executed
• Most burned at the stake.

• In England witches were hanged as they were in
  Salem
• Bible
• Christ cast out demons
• Exodus Do not allow a witch to live.

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What do you know about the Puritans based on this
picture?
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What do you know about Puritans based on this
picture?
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What do you know about Puritans based on this
picture?
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How would you describe their clothes?
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What do you notice about Puritans in this picture?
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What can you infer about the Puritans from this
picture?
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This is a picture of Salem Village around 1692.
What conclusions can you draw based on what you
see in this picture?
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Puritan View of God and the Bible

• Mysterious
• Distant
• Not understandable

• Book of Law
• Infallible

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Five Basic Beliefs

• Man is sinful
• Man cant save himself
• God chooses people to be saved
• Gods grace saves not their actions
• Once saved always saved

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Strict Moral Code

• Sabbath (Sunday)
• A day of prayer worship no work
• Levity no laughing, silliness, life is serious
• Gambling forbidden, dishonest a waste of time
  Drinking no drunkenness
• Idleness Doing nothing was against the law
• Death Penalty adultery, murder, rebellion,
  witchcraft
• Dancing not allowed
• a waste of time - evil

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Clothing

• Long sleeves
• Long skirts
• No jewelry
• No lace
• No ribbon
• No fur hats
• Women are considered of the devil or the
  devils tool

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Worship Service and Building

• Barren
• Well lit
• No musical instruments
• Separate seating of sexes
• 1-3 hour service
• How does this fit with the ideas of Puritanism?

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Church Government

• Only property owners could be a church member
• Women couldnt vote
• Theocracy (church state are one)
• Pastor was the head of the community
• Male head of house was part of the general court.
  
• They made laws about the moral issues and
  collected taxes.

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View of Nature

• The Puritans who arrived in America in 1620 held
  vastly different attitudes toward the natural
  world than we do today
• Feared the American wilderness for some very
  practical reasons
• 1. Most Puritans came from an area in England
  that
• was not densely forested.
• 2. They were also afraid of the wild animals that
  inhabited the
• American wilderness. They were not accustomed to
  seeing mountain
• lions and bears, for example.
• 3. They were also afraid of the Native
  Americans who inhabited the wilderness.
• Nature is the unknown. It is where the Devil
  is housed.
• Nature is a place of spiritual temptation. (Where
  was Christ tempted?)

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Attitudes Toward Others

• Very Intolerant
• The Puritan community thought that heretics
  should have only the liberty to leave.

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Have we learned from the Puritans?

• Plain living (basics)
• High thinking
• Work ethic
• Morality
• Democracy (Roger Williams)

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Nathaniel hawthorne

• Was born Nathaniel Hathorne
• Added the w to distance himself from Puritan
  relatives
• Part of the Romantic/Gothic movement in
  literature (1800-1850)
• The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850

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• The Scarlet Letter is powerfully written but my
  writings do not, nor ever will, appeal to the
  broadest class of sympathies, and therefore will
  not obtain a very wide popularity.
• -Hawthorne, after
  finishing the novel
• 4,000 copies of The Scarlet Letter sold in the
  first 10 days

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Romanticism

• From 1800-1850
• It was definitely and even defiantly American
• Writers struggled to understand what "American"
  could possibly mean, especially in terms of a
  literature which was distinctively American and
  not British.

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Romanticism

• A good time in American History for it
• Possible to make a living as a writer
• Not constantly worried about survival
• Politically ideals of democracy regardless of
  class
• Clash between the ideals and the reality caused
  writers to take extremes

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• Economically
• Wealthiest the US had been
• People had time and funds to read
• Religion
• Second Great Awakening
• Looking for new spiritual roots

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• Trying to revolt against classicalism
• Sought to create an American Literary Voice

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Visual Arts Examples
Romantic Art
Neoclassical Art
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Characteristics of American Romanticism

• Values feeling and intuition over reason.
• Place faith in inner experience and the power of
  imagination.
• Shuns the artificiality of civilization and seeks
  unspoiled nature.
• Prefers youthful innocence to educated
  sophistication.
• Champions individual freedom and the worth of the
  individual.
• Reflects on natures beauty as a path to
  spiritual and moral development.
• Looks backward to the wisdom of the past and
  distrusts progress.
• Finds beauty and truth in exotic locales, the
  supernatural realm and the inner world of the
  imagination.
• Sees poetry as the highest expression of
  imagination.
• Finds inspiration in myth, legend, and folklore.

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Scarlet letter connection

• Turn to a neighbor. How does the Scarlet Letter
  a Romantic piece of literature?

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Romantic Hero

• The romantic hero was one of the most important
  products of the early American novel.
• The rational hero, like Ben Franklin, was
  worldly, educated, sophisticated, and bent on
  making a place for himself in civilization.
• The typical hero in American Romantic fiction was
  youthful, innocent, intuitive, and close to
  nature.

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Characteristics of the American Romantic Hero

• Young or possesses youthful qualities.
• Innocent and pure of purpose.
• Has a sense of honor based not on societys rules
  but on some higher principle.
• Has a knowledge of people and life based on deep,
  intuitive understanding, not on formal learning.
• Loves nature and avoids town life.
• Quests for some higher truth in the natural
  world.

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Connection to Scarlet Letter

• Who is the Romantic Hero in The Scarlet Letter?
  How do you know?

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Gothic Literature

• SUBDIVISION OF ROMANTICISM the dark
  romantics(1800-1850)
• -use of supernatural
• -motif of double (both good and evil in
• characters sin and evil does exist)
• -depression, dark forests
• -Poe, Hawthorne, Melville
• -emphasis on symbolism (which we will
  discuss later)

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Connection to Scarlet Letter

• Is The Scarlet Letter Romantic or Gothic? How do
  you know?

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Definition of a witchA person possessed and
controlled by the Devil or one of his demons.
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Facts of the Salem TrialsSalem, Massachusetts

• Lasted from May to Sept. 1692 (less than 6 mos.)
• There had been three separate instances before
  this in other communities in New England where
  witches were hanged.

• If a witch confessed to being a witch, he (she)
  would NOT die.
• Salem pastor was
• Rev. Samuel Parris
• He had a daughter (age 9) Betty (Elizabeth)
• And a niece (age 11) Abigail
• She is 17 in the play

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More Facts

• Abigail Williams led the girls
• The girls listened to stories of witchcraft and
  magic told by a West Indian slave named Tituba.
• They were found dancing in the woods at a
  séance.

• The girls blamed the slave to escape punishment.
• No one was free from accusation.
• Even the wife of the governor of Massachusetts
  was accused.
• Signs of the girls fits Couldnt talk
  choking acted like animals barking being
  pinched falling into fits.

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Physicians could find nothing wrong with the
girls.
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Effects of Witch Trials

• About 200 were imprisoned on suspicion of
  witchcraft
• 19 were hanged
• 1 was pressed to death
• Giles Corey - 82 years old
• 55 confessed to being witches and avoided death.

• Other accused witches died in prison Sarah
  Osborn Roger Toothaker Lyndia Dustin Ann
  Foster (As many as thirteen others may have
  died in prison.) sources conflict as to the
  exact number of prison deaths

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19 Were Hanged
Bridget Bishop Martha Carrier Martha Corey
Mary Easty Sarah Good Elizabeth Howe George
Jacobs, Sr. Susannah Martin Rebecca Nurse
Alice Parker Mary Parker John Proctor Ann
Pudeator Wilmott Redd Margaret Scott Samuel
Wardwell Sara Wildes John Willard George
Burroughs
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Massachusetts Bay Colony

• John Winthrop
• Concerned about persecution depression
• Charter from King Charles to establish a colony
  in New England
• Created a refuge for Puritans in America
• 1630?11 ships with 900 settlers
• We shall be like a City upon a Hill the eyes of
  all people are upon us.
• By 1643 20,000 settlers

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Colonial Government

• People owning company stockfreemen male
  heads of households
• All freemenGeneral Court
• Made laws
• Elected the governor
• John Winthrop 1st governor

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Society

• Subsistence farming
• Wheat
• Grains, vegetables, apple orchards, dairy cattle,
  sheep, and pigs
• Fishing and whalingmost important industries
• Harbors
• Lumber
• Shipbuilding
• Social Life is centered around the towns

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Education

• In 1642 law was passed requiring pastors and
  parents to teach children to read.
• 1647 Law
• 50 families elementary
• 100 familiessecondary

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Bridgette Bishop Hanging
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Important People in History and in the Play

• Abigail Williams
• John Proctor
• Elizabeth Proctor
• Marry Warren
• Betty Parris
• Rev. Parris
• Judge Danforth
• Rev. Hale

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Arthur Miller
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His Life

• Born N.Y. City wealthy family
• Father suffered heavy losses during stock market
  crash of 1929
• High School dropout
• Worked as a shipping clerk
• 1934 U. of Michigan accepted him
• Married Marilyn Monroe (divorced)

• Began to write in college
• All My Sons 1947
• Death of a Salesman 1949
• Won the Pulitzer Prize
• The Crucible 1953

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Themes in the Play

• Greed
• Betrayal
• Individuals responsibility
• to himself/herself and to
• society

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Why did Arthur Miller write The Crucible?
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McCarthyism
McCarthyism
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McCarthy Hearings

• The McCarthy Hearings were being condemned by
  Miller as a witch hunt like that in Salem.
• Many were accused of association with Communists
  in McCarthy Hearings.
• People were found guilty with little or no
  evidence guilt by association
• Many lives and reputations were ruined by the
  Hearings.

• Miller was not a Communist party member but
  advocated equality of classes.
• He was disillusioned by Communism in the Soviet
  Union.
• Arthur Miller himself was called before the U.S.
  Senate House Committee on Un-American Activities
  because of this play.

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