To My Dear Children By Anne Bradstreet

Literature is our lens to peer back into past eras, societies, and cultures that may otherwise be unfamiliar to us. History books tell us facts and recount of events that happened in the past, but that times poems, songs, novels, and short stories give us insight into the feelings and reactions of the people to the events and the society that they lived in. Peering back into our own American civilizations past through literature displays to us the changes and shifts in our attitudes towards certain subjects and also reveals the ideals that have stayed constant throughout our history. One central theme of the American lifestyle that has remained constant in society and literature is the effect of God and faith in our society whether from
One prominent poet who gives us a viewpoint into early American colonial society and faith is Anne Bradstreet, who details many of her personal experiences with faith in “To My Dear Children”. While progressing later in American society around the late 1800’s, Emily Dickinson gives us insight into her personal struggles with faith and her relationship with God. Bradstreet living in the Puritan theocratic society of early America has a very different viewpoint on God that Dickinson who lived in a more free thinking society even though it was still heavily centered on faith. Dickinson’s displeasure and discontent with the relationship expected of her with God, as evident in “Of God we ask one favor,” would be empathized with by Bradstreet, but she would reproach the response to this
This idea is largely disconnected from the Christian ideal of a loving, gracious father who wants a personal relationship with the believer. Next, the “For what” followed by a break with a comma reads as a rhetorical question almost sarcastically commenting of the insignificance of her wrongdoing that God is “presumed” to know. This diction choice of "presumed" also takes away the omniscience of God by not being fully confident that God knows what you have done wrong. Although this sentiment of asking God for forgiveness on an unknown fault is known to Bradstreet, she embraces this action as necessary in her relationship with God. She proclaims that the “Lord, search me and try me, see what ways of wickedness are in me, and lead me in the everlasting.” Bradstreet, like Dickinson, is unknown of her specific wickedness yet she does not view this as an insignificant necessity required by the Lord, but as a way to grow stronger in her faith and become closer to God. Dickinson states that “The Crime...is hidden” and this leaves us “Within a magic Prison.” “Hidden” implies that her crime was purposefully disguised by God in order that she would never be able to figure out