Puritans in American Literature

Nathaniel Hawthorne once wrote, “Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin.” He exemplified this most clearly in his crisis-of-faith story “Young Goodman Brown,” which was set in late 17^th Century Salem, MA. Salem, at that time, was the site of the infamous witchcraft trials and executions of 1692. This horrific and appalling scar on American history was also the inspiration for Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible.” Both Hawthorne and Miller utilize the power of literary art to illustrate the light and dark sides of human nature as the epic battle of good vs. evil is played out in a community of faith. These literary classics are momentous parables that verify George Santayana’s adage “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  Hawthorne and Miller documented, for all time, the historic irony of a group of people seeking religious tolerance and freedom from persecution; these individuals then established a church with a rigid moral code that punished all who diversified and sinned against this code. True tales for today?

The setting for both tales was Salem, Massachusetts, established by Puritan colonists. Puritanism was a religious movement opposed to the perceived corruption and impurity of the Church of England. The Church was beginning to accept diverse views and high church practices that Puritans aimed to reform (MA Puritans) or separate from (Plymouth Colonists). Puritans believed in predestination and practiced covenants with God and their community. A Covenant of Grace deemed some chosen as God’s people who have a contract with God. Sins of disobedience against this contract were punishable. However, because Jesus Christ died for our sins, God was contracted to save sinners who confessed. ““The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,” declares the Lord. “As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord. “My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants—from this time on and forever,” says the Lord” (Isaiah 59:20-21). The final covenant, the Covenant of Good Works, promised eternal life in heaven for a pure and righteous life on earth. For New England Puritans, these covenants offered a means of organization and governance both in the church and new Colonial society. God’s law was the only law and there was no separation of church and state. The strict laws of church and state left no room for error, despite the Covenant of Redemption; one could be punished for the mere appearance of impropriety. It is this public righteousness as well as the Puritan belief that the Devil had as much capacity to incorporate as did God which led to the hysterical witch hunts.

In the story of “Young Goodman Brown” a naive young man enters a dark forest where he meets a fellow traveler with a “staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake,” the devil, no doubt. This is the turning point for Goodman Brown - at this crossroads he is challenged to either keep Puritan covenant as he believes to be his righteous nature and heritage, or think for himself as an individual: “Let us walk on; nevertheless, reasoning as we go, and if I convince thee not, thou shalt turn back” (621). The devilish traveler challenges the  good man’s Christian heritage saying he was with his grandfather when he whipped a Quaker and set fire to an Indian village. The elder tries to reveal to the younger that all humans have within them the capacity for both good and evil. “Wickedness or not…I have a very general acquaintance here in New England” (621). This is the beginning of Brown’s loss of innocence and faith. He goes deeper into the forest and meets many of his other Christian neighbors, his congregation heading to the devil worshipping witch’s coven. Eventually, he also sees his wife, metaphorically named Faith, and her innocent pink ribbons dancing on the winds of sin. He is devastated that all he has known and seen in the light of day is not what it appears to be in the frightening dark of night. “Welcome, my children…to the communion of your race! Ye have found, thus young, your nature and your destiny.” Was this a dream? Hawthorne never fully reveals that fact to the reader. Toward the end of the story, however, the devil dashes all hope, “Now are ye undeceived! Evil is the nature of mankind” (627). Goodman Brown never recovered from his loss of faith in the good side of human nature. Too true today, this November 2016 day?

Arthur Miller’s play of the Salem witchcraft trials was an allegory for all time that also revealed the light and dark sides of human nature. He wrote “The Crucible” in response to McCarthyism and the hearings conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Miller was suspected of anti-communist, un-American (and therefore un-Christian) activities. Just like in the Salem trials, he was asked to name names of others suspected of immoral acts. In his play, a group of young Puritan girls, rather than get in trouble for playing in the woods with the black slave Tituba, point their finger at the equally powerless slave, accusing her of being a witch. The town becomes hysterical as more and more men, women, and even dogs are named as witches. Through the process of naming, the previously powerless children rise in stature and status and persecution masquerades as virtue in this true-to-life witch-hunt. In the final scene, when John Proctor was asked why he refused to sign his name said, “with a cry of his whole soul: Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life!...How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name” (Crucible 4.293). Proctor considers his name the key to his individual identity and independence separate from the Puritan church/state in which he lived. At this time in Salem, MA "Every authority not only confirmed the existence of witches but never questioned the necessity of executing them"(Miller 5). To call or name a person a witch was a death sentence. The only way one accused of being a witch could escape the hanging rope in 1692 was to name the other witches. Tituba saved her neck by naming others. John Proctor refused, shouting, "You will not use me! I am no Sarah Good or Tituba, I am John Proctor! You will not use me!" (Crucible 4.281). Again, he differentiates himself from the collective mass hysteria with his name. Miller’s play reflects on the power of naming to divide and destroy. True today?

There are numerous incidents of this evil tendency of human nature to scapegoat and blame others for unfounded fears, guilt, or inexplicable trials and tribulations. Allow me to name just a few prime examples before and after McCarthyism: the Holocaust, naming of Muslim Americans after 9/11 as evil terrorists; all undocumented Mexican immigrants called aliens, drug dealers or thugs; the name calling on the political stage; or the calling out of LGBT people at the start of the AIDS crisis. As an act of bullying, name calling can destroy individual lives and communities. Throughout American history, nay human history, how often have we witnessed the religious right, the fundamental righteous, justify evil acts against fellow humans in the name of God and in their fear of those who think differently? Nathaniel Hawthorne and Arthur Miller understood that literary art (all art actually) can serve as artifacts to mirror our humanity and inhumanity. We would be wise, today, to revisit the literature of Puritan America and reflect upon both the good and evil truths of our human nature. This Thanksgiving in 2016, I reflect on how a righteous denial of our human nature can have devastatingly deathly consequences to the individual freedoms and diverse beliefs the Puritans sought and celebrated on that first Thanksgiving.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “Young Goodman Brown.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature.

Nina Baym. 8^th ed.  New York: Norton. 2013. 209-220. Print.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Penguin Group, 1995. Print.

Miller, Arthur. "Are You Now Or Were You Ever?" The Guardian/The Observer. 17 June 2000. Web.

3 September 2016.