LITR 4326 Early American Literature Research Posts 2016 (research post assignment) Research Post 2

Haley Stilwell

Puritan Morality—Ignorant Humanity

          The fantastic elements that surround the Salem Witch Trials have always had a mysterious allure which intrigues research over the somber event. Through research, it becomes adherently apparent that the mass hysteria created by the Salem Witch Trials was not sparked by a fear of supernatural evils, but rather by a fear of the oncoming Enlightenment Era. By focusing their fear of the unknown onto a fantastical entity, the Puritans were able to rationalize their irrationalities. This dramatized fear of change caused the Puritans to commit immoral acts against and condemn innocent members of their own faith and community.

          Scholar, Sarah Rivett, argues that, “Salem must be about something other than witches, demons, superstitious clergy, and hysterical children. Otherwise it simply does not make sense.” (495). Rivett’s profound statement questions the intent of the righteous Puritans. Rather than sensibly accepting the transformation of the Religious Reformation Era to the Enlightenment Era, or Age of Reason, they choose to blindly cling to superstition in hopes of preserving their current way of life. The Enlightenment Era encouraged people to question ways of life which severely threatened the Puritan belief of following God through pure faith. Rivett claims that, “the devil represented an epistemological step on the way to an emerging Enlightenment modernity” (499). The Puritans ignorantly use the devil, a symbol of immorality and evil, to represent the fear of reason that threatened religion’s high standing authority. The fear of the devil, rather than the changing of eras, allowed for the Puritans to reinforce the power of God and give them hope of an unchangeable community.

Benjamin C. Ray quotes that scholar Richard Francis “believes, [that the Age of Reason there was] a prophetic turning away from the Puritan understanding of the world as a struggle between forces of good and evil, God and Satan, in which human beings were but pawns in the hands of superior forces, and a turning toward a modern religious perspective defined by personal moral responsibility.” (58). Francis’s idea directly portrays the transition that Jonathan Edwards fears and preaches against in his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Edwards preaches that those who turn from God “deserve to be cast into hell; so that divine justice never stands in the way, it makes no objection against God's using his power at any moment to destroy them.” The mass majority of Puritans followed Edwards’s belief by condemning young girls who seem to diverge from the strict religious norms. This fear of change caused the Puritans to abandon their belief of brotherhood and shield themselves from reason and enlightenment. The Puritans' actions harshly divagated from John Winthrop’s ideals in “A Model of Christian Charity,” which were highly valued beliefs before this transition of eras. Winthrop preaches unity among Christians and the belief that “if one member suffers, all suffer with it.” Through fear of the unknown, whether they truly believed it to be caused by the devil or not, the Puritans began to act irrationally and out of character.

Intense and illogical fear of change and supposed threat to religion caused discord and created a division amongst the Puritan people. Instead of joining together in worship and prayer during the transition into the Enlightenment Era, the Puritans reacted savagely in a failed attempt to strengthen their religious ties. The Salem Witch Trials portrayed the disembowelment that is produced through mass hysteria versus the unity and power that is so highly sought after.

Works Cited

Ray, Benjamin C. "Satan's War against the Covenant in Salem Village, 1692." The New England Quarterly 80.1 (2007): 69-95. JSTOR. Web.

Rivett, Sarah. "Our Salem, Our Selves." The William and Mary Quarterly 65.3 (2008): 495-502. JSTOR. Web.

White, Craig. Puritans. http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/xhist/Puritans.htm

White, Craig. Salem Witch Trials. http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/xhist/SalemWitchTrials.htm