Puritan Faith Essay

1661 Words7 Pages
America as we know it today all started in the 17th century with the migration of a group of people known as the Puritans. The Puritans haled from Western Europe, specifically England. One group of the Puritans, the Pilgrims, immigrated to North America in 1620 and began forming colonies all throughout what is now America. Puritan ideology was strongly based on education and religion. Both of these things were staples in everyday Puritan life. Puritans believed wholeheartedly in the Christian religion. This devotion gave them hope of a life after death, and a belief that every action in their lives would be judged in the grand scheme of things and would determine where they would go in the afterlife: heaven or hell. While this belief was positive for most Puritans and lead to happier, more benevolent lives, it could also be seen as detrimental to the lives of some Puritans. These two sides to Puritan religion are nicely depicted in the play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller. This play follows the community of Salem, Massachusetts during the time of the Salem witch trials. While this story is mostly historically accurate, Miller does dramatize portions of it for the purpose of making it an interesting play. The story makes it easy to see ties between the Salem witch trials and Puritan beliefs, and the two opposite sides to Puritan religion. The Crucible, which was written around two hundred years after the real events, still holds significance to the Puritan’s religion because Arthur Miller based his play strongly on the actual history of what had happened in Salem in 1692. He was able to make it relevant to the 1950’s because of the spur of McCarthyism, which accused people of being communists, just like how the citizens of Salem accuse others of being witches and warlocks. Through the behavior of the characters in The Crucible, the double-edged
Open Document