Puritans

Question 1

“The Prologue” by Anne Bradstreet

Answer 1

• struggle of being a female writer in the Puritan era
• Puritan women were not allowed to overstep a man’s ability
• even if she wrote something worthwhile they would vilify her for copying it
• kinda angry with people who think she can only sew and not write
• metaphors, ABABCC patter

Question 2

“To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet

Answer 2

• is so satisfied with the love from her husband that she loves him more than gold
• believes when they should love each other as fully as they can so their love remains eternal in heaven
• marriage was a central relationship in Puritan society
• more of a secular poem

Question 3

“The Author to Her Book” by Anne Bradstreet

Answer 3

• expresses feelings about her brother-in-law’s publication of some of her poems
• describes books as her “child”
• claims the book was snatched away from her before it was ready for independence (like a child)
• can’t fix the books flaws but she still has affection for the book, because it is hers
• Mothers were the moral compass for their children
• extended metaphor

Question 4

“Upon the Burning of our House”

Answer 4

• true experience of Anne Bradstreet’s
• her house burns down taking her processions with it
• accepts that everything she owns belongs to God and gets angry with herself for forgetting this fact for a moment
• she is shown to be ambivalent about all of her processions to God
• rhyming scheme is halted as she stops complaining and reminds herself that “All’s Vanity” and that she has greater things for her in heaven
• Puritans put faith in god before everything else.
• irony because she’s not upset about her house burning down

Question 5

“Upon a Spider Catching a Fly” by Edward Taylor

Answer 5

• spider weaves web to catch pray
• spider symbolizes the devil
• wasp fights ferociously to escape
• wasp represents a person strong in faith who is ready to battle sin, as the wasp is able to escape
• fly gets caught and eaten
• fly symbolizes those who get caught in the web of sin and are killed by satan.
• Nightingale eats the spider at the end
• nightingale symbolizes devout christians as they are protected by god
• everyone is tempted by sin but it can be overcome.

Question 6

“Preface” from God’s Determinations Touching His Elect by Edward Taylor

Answer 6

• god made us perfectly but we are the ones who taint it with sin
• we are ruining and taking God’s creation for granted
• god is a potter and we are the clay

Question 7

“Huswifery” by Edward Taylor

Answer 7

-god is the center of life and gives us everything
-predestination, god should be the center of everything
-god making the clothes = god creating us
-wants got to make him a “spinning wheel complete”
“Huswifery” is the work of a house wife

Question 8

“The Flesh and the Spirit” by Anne Bradstreet

Answer 8

• Materialism vs. Spirituality
• If you resist pleasures on earth, you’ll get all of it back and more in heaven
• everything is for the glory of god
• materialism vs. spirituality, personification, rhyme, rhetorical questions, biblical allusions

Question 9

How were Puritan women able to gain power over their husbands/families in such a male-dominated society?

Answer 9

• they could overcome the suffering of birth
• they didn’t complain
• if a women lived through child birth the man would feel guilty for impregnating her and feeling pleasure

Question 10

“Puritan Wives” by Martha Saxton

Answer 10

• Puritan traditions doubted women’s’ abilities for goodness. However, women could achieve moral stature for suffering, sacrifice, and gentle correction.
• pain of childbirth was highly respectable, mothers would either (1) sacrifice themselves during labor or (2) sacrifice the child if she thought the child’s moral compass could not be fixed
• paradoxical, contrast between two views of puritan mothers: veneration and terror

Question 11

Key aspects of Puritans

Answer 11

• very religious (center of their lives)
• humans exist for glory of god
• predestination
• self-discipline
• material success is a sign of being saved

Question 12

Who were the Puritans?

Answer 12

• critics of the Church of England. Some even withdrew (separatists)
• they came to the new world for religious freedom
• they came to the new world to create a “city on a hill”

Question 13

Olaudah Equiano

Answer 13

the dude who came to America on the slave ship

Question 14

Puritans theory of literary style?

Answer 14

plain style of writing–one in which clear statement is the highest goal

Question 15

John Smith

Answer 15

• egoist, adventurer, poet, and mapmaker
• founded Jamestown
• president of the colony

Question 16

William Bradford

Answer 16

• after the founding of jamestown, helped lead the pilgrims to what is now Massachusetts
• wrote in a plain puritan style

Question 17

Hester

Answer 17

• prior to her marriage, she was a strong young woman
• shame, ignominy, outcast
• starts speculating human nature and becomes a free think
• brings food to the poor

Question 18

Roger Chillingworth

Answer 18

• difficult husband
• feeds on the vitality of others to energize his own projects
• Chillingworth dies because after Dimmesdale dies, chillingworth no longer has a victim
• represents true evil
• secular (medical practices and experiments)

Question 19

Arthur Dimmesdale

Answer 19

• his mental pain and guilt from letting hester assume all the blame allows him to empathize for others.
• ironically, this makes him an even more powerful speaker and compassionate leader.
• the townspeople do not believe his protestations of sinfulness

Question 20

Pearl

Answer 20

• she is a symbol
• makes the reader aware of the scarlet letter on Hester always
• shows that out of sin comes treasure
• represents the passion that caused that sin