The following question refer to activity 4: Assessing fat digestion by pancreatic lipase and the action of bile…
4) Although she was deeply religious, what else did Ann Bradstreet show appreciation for in her poetry? How might this have been a struggle for her living as a Puritan? She demonstrated appreciation for the material and natural world. Because they thought personal emotions was dangerous.…
Bradstreet talks about topics such as her relationship with her husband and children and her struggles with religion. In her poem “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment,” her husband was gone and coming back soon, but whenever she looked at her children, she was reminded of him. She wished he was there with her because he is like the sun, full of warmth and kindness, and her life revolved around him; without him she would be nothing. In her poem “Before the Birth of One of Her Children,” she believed that she was going to die during childbirth, but she wasn’t the only one, because many women back then had the same fear. Also, if she passed away, she was worried that her children were going to end up with a horrible stepmother, so she frequently asked God to protect her and her children. Although Bradstreet was a woman who expressed great amounts of faith, she was often left struggling when her feelings turned to resentment, confusion, and betrayal towards everyone around her. Often things went badly for her, and she doubted God because she thought he was punishing her for the wrong things she had done. Since she doubted God, she would pray and realize that everything happens for a reason. She wasn’t being punished; there was a lesson that needed to be learned, and when she struggled, she wouldn’t dwell on her sinfulness, she continued with living her life.…
I believe that Anne Bradstreet (1612 – 1672), made major contributions to early American Literature through her poetry. Her poems stressed the daily struggles and stress of Puritan life. Bradstreet had struggled with the validity of the Scriptures, but through her life experiences she developed a strong belief in God. Bradstreet paved the way for future female writers. She used her poetry and writing skills to break through the stereotypes and the strict moral code that was placed on women in her time. Bradstreet, with the help of her brother-n-law, had her manuscript of poetry printed in London in 1650. “The Tenth Muse” was the first collection of poems written by an American resident. Bradstreet was better known for her writings that detailed her daily life and her relationship with her family. She describes in great detail the relationships she had with her father, husband, children and even her grandchildren.…
Anne Bradstreet was a Puritan who was vocal about the invisible battle that always goes on between God and the devil and how the devil was clever always seducing man to succumb to his inherent materialistic desires. She also notes of the need to obey God and how God answers prayers to those who are faithful. Edward Taylor’s accounts were focused on dichotomizing Christians in different classes as he noted that there were different ranks of Christians within God’s church. He noted that in everyday life, those who softened their hearts to God’s mercy were frequently tempted by the devil in an effort to subdue them. He highlighted how these temptations presented themselves in varying forms from subtle arguments to threats of…
The Puritan faith varied greatly between its public and private members during the 17th and 18th century. Anne Bradstreet shows the private side of the Puritan faith in her poem and Jonathan Edwards shows the public side of the Puritan faith. Bradstreet was a very successful colonial poet during the mid to late 17th century, while Edwards was a Puritan preacher who led the Great Awakening about seventy years after Bradstreet, in the 1730s and 1740s. Bradstreet’s poem “Upon the Burning of Our House,” written in 1666, and Edwards’s sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” given in 1741, reveal the Puritan views on loving God. Although Bradstreet and Edwards both believe in an omnipotent God, Edwards believes that people should fear God and His unimaginable wrath toward them, while Bradstreet believes that God…
A major element in the narratives of Mary Rowlandson and William Bradford was the presence of God. He is constantly cited as the reason for an event or thanked for a good fortune. God had such an influence on these writings because the writers were Puritans, who saw God in everything. They believed their lives were works of God and often kept diaries so they could document their days. In Mary’s narrative, we see a personal connection between her and God. She often thanks God for the little things which bring her happiness, peace, or comfort. She credits God for providing her with a Bible, overcoming the allure of tobacco, staying out of harm from Native Americans while she traveled…
Anne Bradstreet-in “The Burning of Our House,” Anne was the narrator of this poem in which she expressed how she felt when her home caught fire. The Entire poem was based on Anne’s emotional state during her time of despair and how her faith helped her through. As I read through the poem I noticed that she spoke of her religious beliefs and her relationship with God throughout the poem. “And to my God my heart did cry,” (8). In order to understand and relate to this poem the reader must have some form of religious belief. Anne spoke on how God took away her material items, but her faith helped her comprehend and understand that they never belonged to her in the beginning. “I blest His name that gave and took,” (14). God can…
William Bradford repeatedly wrote about God intervening in human affairs. In one instance, he stated, “Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the fast and furious ocean…” (Norton Anthology 75). Through statements like this one, Bradford illustrates the Puritans’ heavy reliance on God. They seem to believe that everything happens for a reason in relation to God. If there were prosperous times, the pilgrims were being rewarded. If bad events occurred, they were being punished. This is how Bradford and the Puritans viewed the world. Anne Bradstreet exhibited similar beliefs. She mentioned God and the concept of eternity in many of her poems and letters. In a letter to her children, she discussed how Satan had tried to hurt her by making her question her beliefs many times. She said that she overcame this by seeing all of the little miracles that surrounded her (Norton Anthology 125). Her intense faith in God is a trademark of her Puritan beliefs. Bradstreet exhibited an overwhelming amount of trust in a being that she had never actually seen. Therefore, Bradford and Bradstreet most definitely exhibit their Puritan beliefs throughout their…
Edwards mentions that those in a “miserable” state can be brought to a “happy state” where God will fill their hearts with “love to him who has loved them” (Edwards 3). The sermons’ ending tries to prove that by rejoicing God and staying true to the Puritan faith, people will want to be joyful and hopeful in the glory of God. Both of these works show how to be a good Puritan in the eyes of Bradford and Edwards. While the journal and sermon both represent strong ways of Puritanism, the way Bradford shows it is in a very positive way with a loving God, while Edwards shows a very resentful and hateful God. As Bradford begins to describe the story of the Puritans’ journey, he explains how God helped them in their travels. He writes that the travelers “fell upon their knees” once they landed because they knew the “God of Heaven [had] brought them over” to this new land and they wouldn't have been able to make it over the “furious ocean” without His help (Bradford 70). The journal continues to prove that God is an amazing, helpful, and glorious God that always goes on to support the Puritans with everything that they…
Bradstreet made it clear in her literary works that she had a strong love for her earthly life, delighting in her husband and children, in the life they had together, as well as their home. However, she had an even stronger love for God, and her faith was what saw her through the trials she endured on earth. In one of her most well known poems, Upon the Burning of…
Similar to that of Rowlandson, Bradstreet sought comfort through her Puritan belief. Bradstreet moved to a new colony with her husband. However, this move was not without hardships. When Bradstreet and her family made the big move to America in 1630, many fellow travelers died, and Bradstreet herself developed small pox as paralysis took over her joints. But with “…the belief that God had not abandoned [her] helped her survive the hardships of the colony.”(annebradstreet.com)…
Puritan women spent a great deal of their adult lives pregnant. The life expectancy of women was lower than it was for men (62 for women vs. 69 for men), mostly due to the fact that there was a high rate of death during childbirth. According to the Digital History Project, “during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, between 1 percent and 1.5 percent of all births ended in the mother's death as a result of exhaustion, dehydration, infection, hemorrhage, or convulsions. Since the typical mother gave birth to between five and eight children, her lifetime chances of dying in childbirth ran as high as 1 in 8.”…
Religion and writing have always gone hand in hand. It is an issue with so many dimensions that the question is never fully resolved, leaving it constantly open for debate. Most writers, both past and present, either directly or indirectly, incorporate some sort of religious symbolism into their writing. A vast majority of contemporary writers choose to try and hold religious ideas and statements to a minimum. Other writers are considerably more open with religion and make no attempts to hide it; on the contrary, they weave religious symbolism, ideals, and salvation into their writing. Flannery O’Connor and Doris Betts are two such writers from the “intensely religious Bible Belt” of the South who have been lumped in…
Anne, as the speaker of the poem, begins describing her feelings at that sad moment. She feels sorry for her grandchild because she thinks that God took her so soon. The repetition of the word “farewell” at the beginning of the first three verses emphasizes the tragic situation that she is living. However, the way how she comes to terms with death in this first part of the poem is really unusual for a Puritan person. She thinks that her grandchild should not have death as soon as she did, in some way she is saying that God did not let her grandchild leave and she complains about it in this first part of the poem. This attitude about death is quite different from the usual Puritan view of death, that accept it as a part of the life that God has prepared to them, so the poet resists to accept the common view of death (common for the Puritans). The comparison with the flower in the third lane evidences this though. As the poem advances, Anne says that she should not complain more about her lost, because she is gone and nothing can bring her back.…