Category: Anne Bradstreet

Anne Bradstreem conveyed two important messages in both her poems; “Verses upon the burning of our house” and “ To my dear Grandchild.” Although she was talking about two different things, one who is a person and another who an object in the end it does come together to convey a message of life and God. Basically that no matter how life goes and what/who does or doesn’t go along with you it’s all in God’s hand/plan for you. It’s all the purpose of life for you and that person or even object.

In “To my dear Grandchild” Bradstreem felt saddened by the death of her grandchild and couldn’t acknowledge that the path of destiny is predefined (for her already). She felt the need to blame herself but in the end she wishes to move on ahead as soon as she can. Basically she encourages the readers to look at life as a predestined story and to move ahead with their lives. Anne educates her readers on letting go of death ones and accepting their fate as the way of life. That basically everything happens for a purposeful reason. I personally agree that everyone has a purpose in the world and once it’s fulfilled that’s when God takes us home. Because in the end we’re all going to go home just in our own time when our purpose is fulfilled basically. We always leave a mark on someone so we shouldn’t be unreasonable as to why our loved one is gone.

In “Verses upon the burning of our house” Bradstreet loses not only her house but her possessions inside the house as well. The only thing that will forever be saved are all her memories that happened inside her house. It was still very difficult for her to move on or even pass by her house without being sad. However, she accepts that everything she owns belongs to God. That He can take anything He wants from his children at any time. Because in the end it was never hers. Anne also came to realize that even though her house on earth is gone she knows she has a home up in heaven. Anne took the lost of her house as if it was a person but that doesn’t display a loss of faith or a desire to relinquish Puritanism but it does revel her humanity. Anne’s message towards the end is to be active in your faith in order for it to remain meaningful.

Like I said although both lost were two different things they both come as one message in the end. No matter who or what you lose it can be difficult to move on but it just takes faith and understanding. Anne wanted Puritans to have faith in what happened, in what they believed in and what was yet to come. To have an understanding as to why the things happened. It can be a simple answer if you have faith. The simple answer is God has a plan and a purpose for everyone and things in life. Even for an object because it still turns out to mean a lot for you. Just like the house meant a lot for Anne. It was where her children grew up and her great memories of her husband. It’s almost as moving away and leaving the memories behind. It’s still a hurtful feeling to experience but change can be good at time and new memories can be created anywhere else you plan to go.

To end my point look how Anne Bradstreet made a mark on puritans with powerful messages. She brought a more understanding point to losses in life. A more understanding as to why God took them away. Because I know we always ask why he takes away what we most love. Well it’s for a purpose; the purpose of that person that is already fulfilled and towards its loved ones as well. That whatever they helped you with along their way was part of the plan. Sometimes I see it as the ones we lose are the prettiest flowers in the garden and who doesn’t like to have the prettiest flowers so God just takes them back before they aren’t taken care of (correctly) anymore. Both her poems still relate to how people encounter their feelings today. With so much grief instead of celebration as well. Celebrate what was once alive, what was once yours because everyone knows that nothing lasts forever. Only maybe your memories but that’s good enough to keep you moving on in life. Because no matter what you gotta keep moving on in life. Time doesn’t stop or slow down for you so why should you. Everyday is literally a new day. A day you can’t get back but that’s okay because new ones are coming and better.

Anne Bradstreet was born in 1612 to a nonconformist former soldier of Queen Elizabeth, Thomas Dudley, who managed the affairs of the Earl of Lincoln. In 1630, he sailed with his family for America with the Massachusetts Bay Company. The ship carried Puritans to New England, where Anne and her family emigrated to America. The Puritans fled Great Britain’s monarch to avoid and escape persecution. During this time, as the Puritans were new colonists at the time, the British colonies were attempting to get settled in the Americas alongside attempting to get ahold of the natives and their property. Although she had not gone to school, Anne was well tutored in literature and history in Greek, Latin, French, Hebrew, as well as English. Anne was highly intelligent and independent. She appreciated the love and security of a man, but she believed that any woman who sought to use her wit, charm, or intelligence in the community at large, found herself ridiculed, banished, or executed by the Colony’s robust group of male leaders. Her domain was to be domestic, separating herself from the aligned church and state relations.

In her Untitled poem that was written in 1643, Anne Bradstreet is discussing the Puritan concern of many religious aspects along with the concern regarding morality, character, prayer, duty, and death. Her work reflects the rough time she had gone through, alongside other women in similar positions as being a Puritan woman. Because Puritan women were not allowed to express their opinions and outlooks, her work came as a shock to many. She was sought out to be striking. Bradstreet was the first woman to be recognized as an accomplished New World Poet. She was the most prominent of early English poets of North America and the first writer in England’s North American colonies to be published. She is the first Puritan figure in American Literature and notable for her well written and impactful poetry, as well as personal writings published posthumously. Her work did not get the recognition that it deserved because, just like many women at that time, Anne was one of the underrated females during the development of the United States of America. Thus, Bradstreet was a woman from the 1600s – a Puritan woman from the 1600s – which contributed to the lack of recognition earned.

Nancy Hart was born in 1735 in North Carolina. She was a muscular, six-foot woman who was fearless and intimidated many. Hart was one of the more successful known spies. She married Benjamin Hart at the age of 36 and had six sons and two daughters while they settled in Georgia. During the early 1770s, Nancy, Benjamin, and their family left North Carolina and migrated into Georgia, settling in Broad River valley of the northeast Piedmont area. There she drew on her many frontier skills, including herbalism, hunting, and shooting. Through family ties, Hart had connections to other prominent figures in early American history. Such as the Revolutionary War general Daniel Morgan who was her cousin. He commanded victorious American forces at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina in 1781. Nancy Hart was known as the rebel heroine of the American Revolutionary War noted for her exploits against Loyalists in the northeast Georgia backcountry. She repeatedly outsmarted Tory soldiers and killed some outright. Hart was also a spy. Throughout her missions, she would always be in positions that included her getting information from British and returning it to the Patriots. The British troops would often stop by her home to monitor the Patriotic woman, although Hart would always catch them in the act and send them to the Patriots.

There was a time when she killed a guy, wounded another, then the others surrendered. During the time Hart was forming herself into a hero, America was involved with fighting in the Revolutionary War and attempting to gain their independence. The U.S. had to figure out how to make themselves economically stable and form their government to be powerful when they won the war. Nancy Hart had many accomplishments throughout her life due to her incredible skill and intelligence that comes with being a spy. She was a legendary hero of the American Revolution who made it her mission to rid the Georgia territory of British Loyalists. According to various accounts, Nancy captured six, killed one, and oversaw the hanging of five others. Hart did not receive the recognition she deserved due to the fact that she was a spy and had to keep her identity a secret. Nobody could know her actions, which could be an attribute as to why she was not well known. Even though Hart was a strong woman who pursued her violent actions, she might not have stuck out as much as other Revolutionary heroes have. She had to refrain from gaining recognition due to her job, having to keep that part of her life hidden. Therefore, she was fulfilling her duty and continuing with her life and did not seem to want recognition. Sarah Josepha Hale was born in Newport, New Hampshire on October 24th, 1788, and was mostly known for her work on creating the children nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and working on the magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book. During this period, America had declared independence on July 4th, 1776, and was working on establishing a better government, military, and public institutions such as a national bank.

Sarah Josepha Hale was educated due to her parents being compelling advocates for the education of both genders. Sarah embarked on a job as a writer and editor to support her family. She went on to anonymously write The Genius of Oblivion and several other original poems. Years later, Hale released the novel Northwood: A Tale of New England (1827). Hale was a staunch advocate of schooling for girls as well as women, pushing for entry into professions like teaching and eventually medicine. She helped create the Troy Female Seminary and finance Vassar College and campaigned for girls to join the association’s faculty. Sarah made many accomplishments throughout her lifetime. She established the Troy Female Seminary, financing Vassar College, and advocating for women to join the institution. She also pushed for Thanksgiving Day to be recognized as a national holiday in America. During that time, women did not have equal rights as men and were treated unequal. It is believed that Sarah Josepha Hale did not get the recognition she deserves, mainly due to her gender. Her different opinions on such movements can also be another reason as to why she did not get the recognition she deserves. There is a chance that many would not agree with her views and believe that she did not change or impact the nation.

Lust

Noun –

1. uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite; lecherousness.
2. A passionate or overmastering desire or craving (usually followed by for): a lust for power.
3. Ardent enthusiasm; zest; relish: an enviable lust for life.

Verb – (used without object): to have intense sexual desire.

1. to have a yearning or desire; have a strong or excessive craving (often followed by for or after).

Etymology: Before 900; Middle English luste, Old English lust; cognate with Dutch, German lust pleasure, desire; akin to Old Norse lyst desire.

Lust played a big part in defining the romantic movement, especially in Arthur Miller’s play, “The Crucible”. “The Crucible” is a story about the old Puritan society where a man faces serious punishment for committing adultery against his wife. Lust is what pushes John Proctor to partake in the very sinful act that puts the entire town of Salem in an uproar. Lust is what causes Proctor to make his poor decisions and ultimately cause his own downfall. The lust for power is also present in the story of “The Crucible”. Through the whole of the play, the condemnation of innocent people for being witches happens simply for one’s own prosperity or power. People in the town of Salem lust to increase their own stature but more importantly, for the destruction of others. In Anne Bradstreet’s poem “The Tenth Muse”, is a letter that she is writing to her husband who has died. Anne explains the lust that she has to return to her husband and be with him once again. The lust that Anne Bradstreet displays in her poem is one of passion and desire to be reunited with her spouse.

The origin of the word “lust” comes from Old to Middle English and also from Dutch and German roots. Lust is defined as “uncontrolled or illicit sexual desire or appetite; lecherousness” and also “a passionate or overmastering desire or craving”, according to dictionary.com (“Lust”). Lust in “The Crucible” is something that is within lots of the characters present in the play. From one of the most important characters throughout the story, John Proctor and Abigail Williams who ultimately causes the downfall of proctor, the entirety of the story revolves around lust. In Anne Bradstreet’s poem, her “lust” is different from what is displayed in “The Crucible”. In “The Tenth Muse”, Anne Bradstreet lusts to be reunited with her late spouse with strong passion and craving.

Lust is a common theme in the “The Crucible” and it governs the plot of the story as a whole. The tension between the characters because of lust grows as the plot progresses in the play, mainly between the culprit, John Proctor and his wife, Goody Proctor. At the beginning of the story, the main focus is set on the witch trials and the girls who were said to be doing witchcraft in the woods, but as it progresses there is a shift in the plot. While the focus of the story is on witchcraft, there is a sense of lust for power especially between Parris and John Proctor. As Betty is “ill” or possibly consumed by a demon, Proctor keeps pressing Parris to alert legal authorities of what is going on. Part of this is due to Proctor testing Parris and his credibility as a pastor. Parris knows at this point what Proctor is doing knows that if it is found out that the reverend of the town’s daughter is consumed by a demon than he certainly will not be respected in the same manner. After being put under fire by both Rebecca and Proctor, Parris says, “A wide opinion’s running in the parish that the Devil may be among us, and I would satisfy them that they are wrong” (27). in an attempt to defend himself. Another instance where Proctor displays his lust for power is when he states that Parris has too much authority and essentially tries to tear down Parris’ credibility. Proctor states, “ I mean it solemnly, Rebecca; I like not the smell of this “authority” (31).

In the later parts of “The Crucible” the mood of the story shifts, and so does the type of lust that is present in John Proctor. The tension between Proctor and his wife grows and their long marriage seems to all be a lie to Goody Proctor. During these moments, there is also a strong sense of lust from Abigail as she tries to claim John for herself. She makes up lies about Goody Proctor and accuses her of witchcraft in attempt to put her to death. The lust between these two characters is what fuels the story. The weight of John’s lustful act peaks as he says to his wife, “When will you know me, woman? Were I stone 1 would have cracked for shame this seven month!” (62). After John sincerely makes up with his wife, the problems that his lust creates are even larger. In court, Goody Proctor has to lie to protect her husband but it backfires. Elizabeth Proctor says “ I came to think he fancied her. And so one night I lost my wits, I think, and put her out on the high road.” (113) when asked why Abigail was kicked out of their house. Eventually, Proctor is put to death because of the lust that he had in the strict Puritan society.

In Anne Bradstreet’s Poem, “The Tenth Muse”, she displays a type of lust that is a little bit different from that of what goes on in “The Crucible”. She lusts for her own return to her husband. A longing for his presence in a genuine, passionate manner. She says, “So many steps, head from the heart to sever, If but a neck, soon should we be together” (Line 5). She is expressing her illicit desire to be reunited with her husband. She also says, “Which sweet contentment yield me for a space, True living pictures of their father’s face “ (Line 15). She displays the lust for the return of her loved husband and this lust is the basis of the poem.

In conclusion, Puritanic writing can be encompassed by lust. Lust in “The Crucible” progresses the plot and writes the story. All of the characters are in some way connected or affected by lust. In Anne Bradstreet’s poem, “The Tenth Muse” it is lust that she is filled with and it is what helps her express her feeling in the poem. In Puritan society, lustful acts were not taken lightly and these works, especially “The Crucible”, reveal this very well.

Works Cited

1. Arthur Miller “The Crucible” 1953 https://esprdg.cscmonavenir.ca/files/2013/10/21078735-The-Crucible-Arthur-Miller-2hmdzot.pdf
2. Anne Bradstreet “The Tenth Mule” 1650 http://www.thatwasi.com/AmStud/resources/from_the_tenth_muse_and_other_poems.pdf

Isolation can be defined as the state of being apart from others, a lack of emotional contact with those in the surrounding environment. It can happen anytime, anywhere, like being isolated from family, and friends. Anne Bradstreet paved the way for females to have a voice when many women were restricted from various opportunities, such as getting an education and gaining meaningful employment outside of the home. Thomas Sweet’s “The Early Elegies of Anne Bradstreet” talks about how Bradstreet felt isolated and constrained in her writing due to her gender. She was further hindered by the lack of female writers from whom she could lean on as a support system. Mary Rowlandson was a Puritan who was kidnapped by the Indians and kept as a prisoner for three months while mistreated and isolated from her family. At times, she wanted to die while being isolated, and her faith helped her to survive. David Downing’s. ‘‘Streams of Scripture Comfort’: Mary Rowlandson’s Typological Use of the Bible discusses the role of the Bible in helping Rowlandson cope with her isolation while enduring those hardships.

There are a plethora of factors that contribute to isolation which is an involuntary mechanism, and the effects of prolonged isolation can be very damaging. Isolation manifests itself in many different ways. Isolation leads to consequences for many people, difficulty in relationships with others and leading to lifelong emotional problems. Isolation can be one of the most destructive feelings humans are feeling.

Many people go through the positive and negative effects of isolation, deriving inspiration from it while at the same time feeling hurt and annoyed.

Bradstreet questioned the stereotypical beliefs of Puritan society in her poems. Timothy Sweet article,(Gender, Genre, And Subjectivity in Anne Bradstreet’s Early Elegies) analyzed Anne Bradstreet and her position on feminism in Puritan society through her poetry. As far back as the 16th century, women were forced to hold dual domestic roles as housewife and mother, while also acting as subordinates to their male counterparts. Puritan women like Anne were restricted from various opportunities like education and jobs outside of the home. Since women had such job limitations during this time, there were very few female writers that Anne could turn to for advice. However, that did not prevent her from challenging the norm. In her prologue, she acknowledges that she was fortunate enough to be highly educated when few women were not. Anne leverages her education to evolve into an important writer by adapting her voice to her audience, creating both public and private poems. Anne’s private works were much more original and honest than her public poems. She never intended her private works to be shared with others. In her public works, she felt anxiety because she was not able to write freely due to the submissive role of women in society.

In Sweet’s article, he mentions how Bradstreet felt isolated in her writing because she was not able to write how she truly felt. If Anne had had female writers to turn to for support or guidance, she may have had less anxiety. However, she was, “overwhelmed by and excluded from the essentially male tradition of authorship,” and did not have enough societal support to go against this norm (Sweet 152). Ultimately, she paved the way for future female writers, which also affected her ability to write. She was “forced into a position of literary subservience” because she was one of the first female writers with limitations on what she could write and had to set the precedent (Sweet 152). Therefore, Anne’s writing was negatively affected by these limitations and she most likely faced the pressure of being the leading female poet during this time, which brought on “ill effects, both on the poet’s self-definition and on her art” (Sweet 152).

Mary Rowlandson Women’s Indian Captivity Narrative focuses on many women captives who are kidnapped by Indians. Rowlandson a Puritan woman, writes about her personal experience while being held in captivity by the Indian tribe. Mary Rowlandson had a well-off lifestyle before her captivity. Rowlandson played the role as a mother, and housewife and was close to her family. When she was separated from her family she felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Rowlandson chooses this order of writing to keep track of what occurred during her captivity. Downing describes how Rowlandson endures many hardships caused by the Indian tribe who burns down her house, separates her from her family, and makes her watch her own daughter die in her arms. Rowlandson’s faith in God sustains her and gives her the strength to overcome her struggles during captivity. Downing writes in detail about how she survives the hardships with God’s help. “In her ordeal, Rowlandson draws on Scripture more than eighty times in the form of direct quotations, allusions to biblical characters, or echoes of biblical phrases Downing (252). These references to the Bible are used to interpret her experience typologically and to provide spiritual lessons for herself and for the Puritan community as a whole. She presents what occurred during her captivity in the language of spiritual autobiography and gives evidence of God’s sovereignty and grace, and of her own place among the elect” Downing (252).

She maintains the Puritan belief that everything happens for a reason and that it was God’s doing. Downing also speaks about Rowlandson’s concern for her soul and her doubts about her own salvation. She rebukes herself for her wickedness and sins which are hardly significant, such as taking the Sabbath for granted. Downing says, “But she is not really confessing her own wickedness as much as she is describing the Puritan view of unregenerate man…The passage articulates her misgivings about her fate as a captive but also about the fate of her soul” (253). Downing mentions many examples in his article showcasing Rowlandson”s reliance on the Bible which is God’s word. When Mary is going through hard times, she would read the Bible to seek God’s guidance and relate it to her own experiences. “This emphasis upon the spiritual significances of her experience is perhaps the central feature of Rowlandson’s narrative” Downing (257). Frequently, Rowlandson wants to die. This is due to her lack of nutrition and hunger. Most importantly, Rowlandson suffers emotionally from being separated from her husband in addition to the grief when her daughter dies in her arms. What she does during these stressful times is read the Bible to get the strength to continue living. She knows God is with her and that lifts her spirits.

The Great Gatsby shows us how money can corrupt a person. The author Fitzgerald seems to be arguing that in American life, money frequently corrupts one’s values. Money controls their every move and shows us what it is like to live of luxury Throughout the novel, there are many characters that have expressed isolation.

Daisy in the Great Gatsby is an example of someone who is emotionally isolated. In chapter 1, Tom receives a phone call from his not-so-secret lover, and Daisy is acutely aware of the nature of the intrusion. Not able to confront him, she engages in meaningless conversation instead:As if [Tom’s] absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.’I love to see you at my table, Nick you remind me of an rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?’ Daisy’s emotional isolation seems to extend to her daughter as well. When Nick asks her pointedly about Pammy at this same dinner, Daisy completely avoids the question. Furthermore, Daisy was alone for the birth of their one daughter. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling… ” (21). She was very isolated from Tom during this time which created her suspicion of Tom and Myrtle’s affair. Daisy uses attention to help cope with his affair. An instance is when she kisses Gatsby in her own husband’s house because she wants to receive her attention. Daisy lets her fear of isolation control her life.

Gatsby is another character that deals with isolation not joining the crowd and having a good time, instead, he is left all alone, like always. He uses these huge celebrations to try to cope with his loneliness. But sill Gatsby is right back to where he started. Once the celebration is over and people leave, Nick expresses Gatsby’s house by stating “a sudden emptiness seemed to flow from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand held up in a formal gesture of farewell” Gastby (55). This help manifest the idea that in Gatsby’s life he is always left by himself in the end. Gasby focused on earning Daisy back which does not get to do. Tom’s reaction to his affair with Daisy also causes isolation for Gatsby. When Gatsby dies, Fitzgerald makes the idea of loneliness/ isolation Gatsby’s life known when no one shows up to his funeral. Gatsby’s isolation is also conveyed through Tom’s reaction to his affair with Daisy.

Mary Jemison in her Narratives was adopted by her two sisters to replace their brother that died fighting, she was forbidden to speak a word of English as well as having a new name. By being stripped of the way she speaks and being given a new name, she loses a sense of her culture and is beginning to have a new one in the Senecan tribe. Mary had trouble adjusting to her new Senecan culture and was “treated as an object by the Indians she is not afforded any opportunity to reach the status of the transgressive subject either” (Tarnóc, 2009). This only strengthens the argument that she was not accepted as a member of the tribe even after being adopted by a family in the tribe.

In Wheatley’s ‘On Being Brought From Africa to America’, it seems like she is saying that her voyage from Africa to America is a blessing. She feels that being in America has given her an opportunity to find and love God, and that no matter their captors beliefs are, in the end they will join the angelic train. In Wheatley’s ‘Thoughts on the Works of Providence’, she praises God for his works of creation along with his power, goodness and wisdom. In the end, she says that everywhere you look, you see God’s infinite love. In Wheatley’s ‘To His Excellency General Washington’, she personifies America as a classic female heroin, Colombia. She urges Washington to fight for their freedom from British rule and portrays the British as slow and clumsy. She then exhorts Washington to engage in war knowing that his side is the virtuous one, and that he is guided by the goddess Columbia. She states that Washington will soon posses a crown, mansion and a throne. After thoroughly delving into Phillis Wheatley essays, I’ve come to a profound appreciation for her perspective.

In Equiano’s ‘Chapter 1’ Equiano acknowledges the difficulty of escaping the charge of vanity for writing a memoir, a genre usually dealing in remarkable events. He describes Africa as a place where slave trades are held, and was from Essaka. Equiano begins talking the culture and customs of the place he came from. He insists on strong, even harsh,moral precepts, which would seem familiar to a British audience for whom adultery was also a grave sin. One of the major distinguishing features of this society is its lack of luxury, something that Equiano will be able to contrast with the decadence and immodesty he sees among white Europeans. In Equiano’s ‘Chapter 2’, he talks about how his childhood memories are bittersweet and that he was the youngest of his seven siblings. He was on watch with his only sister and they were kidnapped and sold for slavery. After months of being sold multiple times he was finally at sea. Equiano seeks to differentiate between immorality and brutality of the civilized Europeans and their African counterparts, this began when he was captured by native Africans. He also described white slave owners as wasteful and unclean. In conclusion to this chapter, he touches on the horrors and realities of the slave trade in which he wishes to destroy.

In Bradstreet’s ‘The Author to Her Book’, I believe she is comparing her poems to mother hood. Her poems were snatched by friends and were published without her consent, like a child being kidnapped. Her poems had many errors and she was embarrassed to be the author of them, A child with flaws. She tried to fix it’s faults like a mother would with a child, but the more she corrected them, the worse it got. In the end, it sounds like she sent the poem out herself. In Bradstreet’s ‘For Deliverance from a Fever’, it begins with her talking about her sufferings such as burning flash, sweating, headache and tossing and turning with so comfort. She is afraid God is upset with her and she calls to him to not hid from her and to protect her soul if she dies. She ends the poem by saying God heard her cries and showed his tender love and redeemed her soul from Hell, and she would praise him for ever. In the Native Americans: Trickster Tales, the message of this tale is to listen to those who warn you. Trickster was walking and heard the bulb say to not eat him and he ignored it and ate the bulb. After he ate the bulb, he had gas and then experienced an immense amount of excrement.I have noticed that some authors have some similarities either in their personalities or their writings.

Bradstreet and Bradford are similar in some ways, they both wrote some of the best work in their time, they both were born in England, they bother got through some tough times, religion were big parts in their lives and they were both puritans. They both talk about their experience in the colonies. Bradford wrote about the starving time and Bradstreet wrote about her house burning down. Phillis Wheatley and Anne Bradstreet are both similar in my opinion not only because they were both women writers in a time where women had no rights, but because they both decided to do American Poetry instead of writing traditional literature. Wheatley wrote about the challenges of being a slave and Bradstreet wrote bout the challenges of being a woman. Equiano and De Crevecoeur have similar writings, both describe the American character to the Europeans. Winthrop and Bradstreet are similar because they are both Puritans and religion is also a very serious topic for them.

Female authors throughout different historical, cultural and social contexts have written extensively in response to their contemporary/immediate reality and each has addressed the woman question in her way. Although these responses vary in nature, form, and content, a common factor in all of them has been a reactionary instinct. Female writers react to ideas surrounding women in the gender discourse, which has—historically, at least—been a male-dominated discourse. Within such a discourse, women writers have struggled to find their voice and stage female interventions into notions about women/womanhood, notions which are androcentric/patriarchal in nature. Foundational to this struggle has been the mediation of women authors through language which is largely phallocentric. Two important female writers who are interesting to study in this respect are Anne Bradstreet and Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

Bradstreet’s ‘Prologue’ and ‘The Author to Her Book’ and Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ are complex renderings of female authors responding to androcentric notions of their time, be it notions relating to literature or medicine. They reveal the passive positions assigned to women in a phallocentric universe and how, directly and/or indirectly women negotiate these restraints placed upon their thinking process, their intellectual capabilities, their mental landscapes, even their very self. The term ‘mental landscape’ is used here to refer to the interior, mental processes of and responses to a given social, cultural and political environment given by a person. The term is not supposed to invoke the picture of a unified, static entity. Rather it is to be used as a medium to understand the ‘self’ as that which is fluid, porous and responsive to changing conditions within and without. This paper does not aim at arriving at a resolved answer to the mental/spiritual dilemmas of the ‘I’, but instead seeks to explore the invariable connection between one’s self-identity and their mental landscape and the way the ‘I’ negotiates through ‘self’-narrativisation.

Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), often credited as America’s first poet, is best remembered for ‘The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America’, a collection of her poems which was published in 1650. Born to a wealthy Puritan family in Northampton, England, Bradstreet is widely regarded as America’s first published poet and as one of the most important poets of the Puritan period. In her day and age, Puritan, as well as patriarchal views, accorded men primacy in literary discourses and public spaces. In examining how a female author like Bradstreet mediated these circumstances, her poems, especially ‘Prologue’, prove crucial.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was a prominent American humanist, who wrote, among other things, novels and short stories. She purported feminist views in her writing and explored utopian feminism in her novel, ‘Herland’. Her best-remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ (1892), which she wrote after her prolonged battle with mental illness. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ has been noted by several feminists to be an important study of the condition of diseased women under an androcentric discipline of medicine in the nineteenth century.

Before tracing the gendered mental landscape in their works, the question arises: what does one mean by a mental landscape that is ‘gendered’? The debate whether men and women think/write differently has existed for centuries. Are men and women so strongly and definitely shaped by preconceived norms of generic gender/sexual identities so as to never be able to transcend them in their writing? Or is literature a realm where such transgressions and subversions can occur?

Varying social, political and cultural climates across different spatial and temporal contexts have had one thing in common- the presence of androcentrism since antiquity. As noted by several feminists, male domination, coupled with the exclusion of women from public spaces and their seclusion into private spaces, has established a center-periphery dynamic in terms of gender. This dynamic has been constructed along the Cartesian mind-body split which sees Man as the mind, the locus of all intellectual and cultural thought and women as an unthinking being limited to and by the functions of her body. In such male-dominated gender discourse, woman has always been identified as the ‘Other’. This dichotomy has been identified by Simone de Beauvoir as that of the ‘absolute’ and the ‘Other’. She says: ‘…for man represents both the positive and the neutral, as is indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general; whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria, without reciprocity…He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other” (15-6).

This power asymmetry between the sexes has been reflected in literature as well. Susan Gubar writes about how Jacques Derrida in his criticism of ‘phallogocentrism’, equated the object that is the ‘pen’ (inherently associated with writing and creating) with the male sexual/reproductive organ that is the ‘penis’. Here the ‘pen’ gets visualised as a phallic image associated exclusively with the male. The woman could be idealised/revered as an object of beauty, as an object art but she could never be the maker, the creator. Hence, the male author handling the pen-penis is given primacy, the woman merely his ‘passive creation’, a ‘secondary object lacking autonomy’ (253).

It is precisely this treatment that Gilman’s protagonist receives at the hands of her husband, John, who is a ‘physician of high standing’. He has diagnosed his wife with ‘temporary nervous depression—a slight hysterical tendency’. The language of the diagnosis highlights another interesting way of analysing the gendered mental landscape: by studying women’s struggle with language. The behavioral tendencies of women constructed under medical science forbid counter-interrogation and impose the ideology of women as emotionally and mentally fragile.

In ‘The Yellow Wallpaper,’ the diagnosis of hysteria or depression, conventional ‘women’s diseases’ of the nineteenth century, sets in motion a therapeutic regimen which involves language in several ways. The narrator is forbidden to engage in normal social conversation. Because she does not feel free to speak truthfully ‘to a living soul,’ she confides her thoughts to a journal—’dead paper’—instead. The only safe language is dead language (61).

The female ‘I’ here exhibits a mental landscape that is restricted and constrained at the hands of a superior, scientific (and of course, male) authority. Deprived of any stimulation of whatsoever, the ‘I’ takes refuge in focussing all its energies into analysing the yellow wallpaper on the walls of the room she is confined to. What begins with a slight distaste at the design and aesthetics of the wallpaper, soon turns into an obsession. Her mind completely taken over by the wallpaper, the wife soon starts hallucinating that a woman is trapped behind it and decides to help her by ripping the paper off the walls. Since she is prohibited to write/create through pen and paper, the wife’s shackled mind looks for other avenues to release its power and ends up ‘creating’ the woman behind the wallpaper, a creation only for the wife’s eyes. Finally, the wife is able to free the ‘woman’ trapped behind the paper, even if ‘her’ release from captivity comes at the cost of her own sanity. Mustering the finals efforts of her mind and spirit begging to be set free, the ‘I’ becomes one with the free woman, someone who has broken free of her constraints once and for all.

This anthropomorphic treatment of an object conceived through imagination is as remarkable as it is emotionally evocative. Something similar also happens in Bradstreet’s ‘The Author to Her Book’. Bradstreet laments about the ‘ill-formed offspring’ of her ‘feeble brain’ and how it was prematurely taken away from her ‘by friends less wise than true’, no doubt referring to the publication of her poetry by her brother-in-law, Rev. John Woodbridge without her permission. From her verses, one can detect the uneasiness surrounding the idea of women ‘creating’ through their mind when traditionally they are allowed to do so only through their bodies. Both Gilman’s ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ and Bradstreet’s ‘The Author to Her Book’ can be said to exhibit conscious, sub-conscious assertions of the self—the self which had been earlier pushed into a corner. Both show the tension between ‘creation’ and ‘procreation’ and how women have been marginalised in terms of the former even though they have sole rights over the latter (Friedman, 52). Both display women being horrified yet inexplicably drawn to their creations, though Gilman’s protagonist becomes one with hers by the story’s conclusion while Bradstreet arguably tries to distance herself from hers.

Bradstreet’s ‘Prologue’ displays more subtlety and self-restraint in terms of emotion and the language used than in ‘The Author to Her Book’. Here, the tools of irony and diplomacy allow the emergence of a self-reflexive authorial self that is aware that it is a peripheral female voice speaking to a mainstream public audience that thinks her ‘hands a needle better fits’. The ‘I’ here shows surprising strength, perhaps because it is secure in the knowledge of Bradstreet’s literary prowess. Due to this, there remains an argumentative tension between Bradstreet’s ‘authorial humility’ and her ‘spirited self-defense’ that is visible throughout her poem (Eberwein, 19). She says that she will not speak of great things like wars and kings but then proceeds to refer to a prestigious literary lineage that draws from Guillaume du Bartas and Philip Sidney, both very well-known poets. Thus there is certainly an ambivalence to the way the ‘I’ argues, an ambivalence which in hindsight was a very clever poetic device to use considering the Puritan Age Bradstreet lived and wrote in which was an age where according to Richard Gray, her title of ‘woman poet’ would have been considered ‘oxymoronic’ (11). Bradstreet’s subtlety and poetic humility thus earned her praise and acclaim in her lifetime and saved her from suffering a fate like that of Anne Hutchinson, one of the more vocal/radical dissenters of Bradstreet’s time.

Anne Bradstreet and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in their works discussed above, can be seen grappling with the dual identity of being a woman and being an author, a duality that has traditionally been considered unnatural. Though the forms and genres they wrote in differ, one can sense in them a common anxiety of wanting to break free from the centuries-old mold in which women and their capabilities have been confined in. The question here is not to determine which one of them was more radical and hence more successful in their authorial ventures, but to analyse and appreciate the different ways women writers have become empowered to interrogate societal and literary norms about women/womanhood and take political stances on the same. If the saying “Personal is Political” is true, then women’s subjectivity and their mental landscapes have become increasingly politicised through their writing. Even if men and women have not completely broken free from pre-established ways of thinking (assuming it is possible in the first place), literature certainly has emerged as a space where transgressions of identities can occur and women writers have, no doubt played a significant role in this.

Puritans sought reform from the Church of England, due to its likeness to the Roman Catholic Church. They wanted to separate the church to be autonomous. Therefore, to escape persecution from England, they escaped to the new land. Because they were some of the first authors in a newly founded America, they brought along their religious beliefs to the new world. They incorporate Puritan ideologies into their works. Puritans are a subsection of Christianity that had emphasis on moral and spiritual lifestyle for humanity. What the works chosen express, is all aspects of Puritan Ideology, but mostly the aspect of self and God.

Puritans, like any other religion, believe in ideologies that define what being a Puritan is. Human Depravity, all humans are evil, born evil. Because Adam and Eve betrayed God and committed original sin, all human beings are in sin. The second idea is Absolute Sovereignty, the idea of God being in control of everything all times. He is omnipresent and nothing gets past him, and therefore everything is in his control and power. The third concept is Predestination, you may be a follower of God, but that doesn’t guarantee you an ascension to heaven. God plans all choices and results because he deliberately planned it to achieve his purposes and goals. The fourth idea is Covenant Theology, which explains what Puritan life is supposed to be about: a relationship with God, social and civil relationships (with each other as humans), and church organization. They believe that the church can be self-governed, and that certain positions of the church is elected by elders. Fifth ideology, this idea focuses on the individual and reading the scriptures of the Bible. Puritans had a progressive stance on education, wanting both men and women to be able to read and write to understand to study and interpret the Bible in their own words. Puritans would also believe in individual reflections, which would lead to different writing scripts from possible authors. In reflecting on the bible, they interoperate what God has to say. Puritans believe everything that happens is because God willed it so, everyday events is because God manifests it so.

Edward Taylor was a minister and poet, who valued the principles of being a Puritan. He, like many other writers like Anne Bradstreet and John Winthrop, had a main focus of writing on religious topics. Taylor focused on the joys of God’s love and grace for one’s spirit. The works I am going to analyze is ‘Meditation 8’ (Taylor, pp. 304) and ‘Huswifery’ (Taylor, pp. 309). This poem explores an abstract look at God’s grace and heaven. Which could be under the aspect of Individual/ Reading. How ‘Huswifery’ ties into the Individual, probably ties into how Taylor was a minster. Minsters preach God’s words and his teachings in their own words. This poem talks about how the narrator wants to be more of an instrument for God. “Then clothe therewith mine Understanding, Will, Affections, Judgement, Conscience, Memory” (“Huswifery”, line 13-14). The narrator wants to be more useful to God, understand more with his teachings. Another concept that could be displayed in this poem, Covenant Theology. “This Bread of Life dropped in thy mouth, doth Cry:/ Eat, Eat me, Soul, and thou shalt never die” (“Meditiaion 8”, line 35-36). Taylor brings the poem to end with a hopeful look at his relationship with God. He ends it on a positive note to saying that God will give him the Bread of Life, and he is accepted into heaven. Lastly, the final concept is Human Depravity. Stanza two (“Meditation 8”, Line 7-8), “When that this Bird of Paradise put in/ This Wicker Cage (my Corpse) to tweedle praise”, assuming his “corpse” is Taylor’s body, is in a cage with the stanza continuing saying how he would deprive himself of God’s gifts. Along with the “Fruit forbade” being the apple from Adam and Eve, which would lead into how the Puritans believe that humans were evil from original sin.

Anne Bradstreet was a young woman when she was boarded the Arbella and was listening to John Winthrop’s sermons. She married young and received her education that only the most educated can wish for today. She did poetry, published in both the New World and Britain. Bradstreet had an amazing feat of motherhood, sickness and still doing poetry of the New World. The two works chosen are ‘The Flesh and the Spirit’ (Bradstreet, pp. 234) and ‘Contemplations’ (Bradstreet, pp. 227). An ideology explored in ‘The Flesh and the Spirit’ is Individual/ Reading. This poem is an allegory of choosing the holy life of the Bible or living with the material riches of man. The poem has arguing sisters, Flesh and Spirit, and they get into an argument of living with by the words of God and praying versus the Earth being filled with riches that can make anyone wealthy and happy. Flesh choosing to live the Earth’s riches and Spirit choosing prayers and meditation. “Thy sinful pleasures I do hate,/ Thy riches are to me no bait” (“The Flesh and the Spirit,” Line 57-58). This is Spirit’s response to say that she doesn’t need material things. Spirit’s lifestyle to kind of ties to Absolute Sovereignty, as to living the life of God’s word overall. What this poem also shows signs of Predestination, because Spirit is living the life of following God, she feels as though she received the riches of heaven. “My garments are not silk, nor gold,/ Nor such like trash which earth doth hold,/ But royal robes I shall have on,/ More glorious than the glist’ring sun” (“The Flesh and the Spirit,” line 79-82). She will have more stunning robes and riches than the materials of Earth that Flesh has to offer. Lastly, we are going to look at Human Depravity in ‘Contemplations’, (Bradstreet, pp. 227). In this poem, Bradstreet really emphasizes the glory of God and how majestic Heaven could be. “How excellent is He that dwells on high,/ Whose power and beauty by His works we know?/ Sure He is goodness, wisdom, glory, light” (“Contemplations”, lines 11-12). Bradstreet questions if that greatness of Heaven can be achieved on Earth. She wonders if because of original sin that she can ever reach that beautiful Heaven that is envisioned. As she contemplates through the human life, she ends on a morbid note of how we, as simple humans, will be forgotten and our riches will parish with us.

Works Cited

1. Bradstreet, Anne. “Contemplations.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature edited by Robert S. Levine et al. W.W. Norton. 2017. Ninth Edition, Volume 1. pp. 227-233.
2. Bradstreet, Anne. “The Flesh and the Spirit.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature edited by Robert S. Levine et al. W.W. Norton. 2017. Ninth Edition, Volume 1. pp. 234.
3. Taylor, Edward. “Huswifery.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature edited by Robert S. Levine et al. W.W. Norton. 2017. Ninth Edition, Volume 1. pp. 309.
4. Taylor, Edward. “Preparatory Meditations.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature edited by Robert S. Levine et al. W.W. Norton. 2017. Ninth Edition, Volume 1. pp. 304.

In 1630, the Puritans made their initial voyage to America, they possessed high goals and ideals in the hope that their future settlement at Massachusetts Bay would become a “city upon a hill”. The utopia settlement envisioned by the Puritans was supposed to serve as an example for the rest of the world in what proper living was. In Anne Bradstreet’s poem ‘The Prologue’, and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel ‘The Scarlet Letter’ specifically ‘The Custom House Chapter’, the authors suggest that whatever Utopia is established, there always will be underlying controversial complications. In ‘The Prologue’, Bradstreet discusses the struggles of being a woman in a Puritan society. She realized that a Puritan society was very patriarchal, and that women were not supposed to speak their mind and have strong opinions. With this literary work she acknowledges her role as a lady in society though she doesn’t believe it. Hawthorne on the other hand, suggests in ‘The Custom House’ chapter of The Scarlet Letter that whatever Utopian society is established, there always will be death, and there always will be crime, that this is just part of being human. Hawthorne was not a Puritan, but he had deep bonds back to this religion, and through the chapter ‘The Custom House’, guides the reader to thought provoking questions. Is sacrificing personal happiness to come home a noble act? Who sets the boundaries of what is right and what is wrong if towns are being governed by moral laws? Both authors use their work to describe a time when Puritans who first settled in Massachusetts in the 1600s founded a colony that concentrated on God’s teachings and their mission to live by His word and also show the flaws within that society.

Anne Bradstreet discusses in ‘The Prologue’, the struggles women were faced with in a Puritan society but also shows her recognition of men’s supposed superiority in that time period with this line: “Men can do best, and women know it well” (Bradstreet, 40). Regardless of her acknowledgement of her role in society, she used her poetry to convey her feelings and opinions about it through honesty and humour. Bradstreet lived in a time where women were meant to keep quite and tend to the children and home. The poem fulfills the same function by providing an insight to the readers of what the prominent theme of her work will be and what she will restrain from writing: “To sing of Wars, of Captains, and of Kings, / Of Cities founded, Common-wealths begun, / For my mean Pen are too superior things” (Bradstreet, 1-3). She began by highlighting the worth of her penmanship but also maintained humility in her tone. Bradstreet successfully questions and defies the patriarchal literary tradition in The Prologue along with subtly disturbing the expectations and assumptions of a Puritan woman. Thus, somehow managing to seek out a middle space between the conditioning and her transparent point of views.

‘The Custom House’ passage introduces the narrator, and in so doing positions the reader to understand the perspective from which the story will be told from. The purpose of this chapter is to get background information on the story to give a starting place for readers. His family background is a vital role to him because it of partial reason to how and why he lives as he does. “This old town of Salem—my native place, though I have dwelt much away from it both in boyhood and maturer years—possesses, or did possess, a hold on my affection, the force of which I have never realized during my seasons of actual residence here” (Hawthorne, 14). He feels connected and tied to the land of his forefathers giving him purpose and reason yet he feels like he’s not living up to their legacy. It is being told many years later by someone completely removed from the story. Hawthorne’s introductory essay functions as a preface but, more specifically, accomplishes four significant goals: outlining autobiographical information about the author, describing conflict between the artistic impulse and the commercial environment, defining the romance novel, and authenticating the basis of the novel by explaining that he had discovered in the Salem Custom House the faded scarlet A and the parchment sheets that contained the historical manuscript in which the novel is based. Hawthorne also previously worked as a customs officer, but has lost his job due to political changes, as well also had Puritan ancestors whose legacy he considered both a blessing and a curse. Moreover, Hawthorne sets himself up to parallel Hester Prynne in significant ways and just like Hester, the narrator spends his days surrounded by people from whom he feels alienated.

Although both works share the idea that with every emerging society, controversial complications are bound to arise, both authors write their stories with different personal controversies. Bradstreet is faced with fact that she is a woman, and no matter what she writes she will never be taken seriously. She will always be compared to a man, “For such despite they cast on female wits. /If what I do prove well, it won’t advance, /They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance” (Bradstreet, 28-30). Even when she writes great poems, people wont believe that its true talent, in these lines she is compared to men, told that her work is a fluke or stolen. Hawthorne himself worked as a customs officer, so there’s more than a hint of autobiography here. The narrator is chief executive of ‘the Custom House’, a place where taxes are paid on imported goods. It’s clear from the unflattering description he gives of his colleagues—’wearisome old souls’—that he doesn’t have much time for them. This would appear to indicate that in the intervening centuries since Hester Prynne passed away, nothing much has changed about Salem.

Conclusively, both these works explicitly outline the authors perspectives on the developing society but from different stand points. Bradstreet’s poetry makes us recognize her as a confident female poet who produced work that boasted of her experiences and by giving them value in a society that silenced it diligently. She presented her strong sense of self along with her resilient struggle for self-assertion through subjectivity and creativity. ‘The Customs House Chapter’ discusses the theme of isolation. His isolation from his coworkers suggests separation will occur in the novel, and there are parallels between him and his heroine, whose artistic, passionate soul separates her from the other Puritans. Of course, while the loss of security was irritating, Hawthorne had not been entirely happy at the Custom-House as a result his long days there prevented him from focusing on the work he desired to do: writing. Even through completely different states, the authors conceive their place in the world by preserving through their societies.

Societies over the ages have called into question the basis of reality and how things came to exist. Religion is one significant way society explains the formation of the Earth, which is the belief in a higher power or powers. Religions have sacred narratives, which people may preserve in symbols, scriptures, and holy places, that aim mostly to give meaning to life. One major institution of religion is the Catholic Church. The corruption of the Church reached a climax during the 16th century resulting in the religious turmoil of the Protestant Reformation. One sect of the Reformation was the Puritans, who believed the Church of England was still too alike to the Catholic Church and wanted a more simple, Bible rooted religion. Anne Bradstreet was a notable Puritan who traveled to the New World to find religious freedom. Her extensive body of work exemplifies the values of a Puritan woman, and she is heralded as one of the first North American poets. Bradstreet’s poem, ‘Before the Birth of One of Her Children’, showcases her spiritual crises as she attempts to accept her possible death and her strong attachment to her family.

The tone of this piece is ambivalent. It is dually, realistic, and nostalgic; it has conflicting feelings of morbidity and hopefulness. Bradstreet is about to have a baby. However, she is preparing herself and her husband for her potential death during childbirth. She starts her poem pondering on the temporary nature of life and the reality of death, declaring, “all things within this fading world hath end”. Bradstreet notes that one cannot have joy without grief and that death stops all life. God’s “sentence”, she reflects, is “irrevocable”. Bradstreet points to God’s punishment of Eve for violating his command and eating from the Tree in the Garden of Eden. Bradstreet understood that the pain of childbirth and the risk of dying was her God-given fate; however, she instinctively felt pessimistic about the idea of being apart from her family and could not fully process the idea of their lives continuing after her death.

After reflecting on the prospect of death, Bradstreet addresses her husband, warning him that her death may be approaching, and he could lose his “Friend”. She specifies how she would like him to remember her, asking her husband to remember any “worth or virtue” she had in life. She also urges him to protect their children, whom she refers to as “my dear remains”, signifying that they are the pieces of her. She asks him to defend their offspring from a heartless stepmother. Bradstreet’s acceptance of her husband’s inevitable remarriage represents the way that a mother was at the center of the Puritan family unit. Here, Bradstreet portrays the stepmother as a caretaker instead of a new wife for her husband. When speaking to her husband, Bradstreet remarks on a knot “that made us one”. She refers to a time that it will come untied. This knot is life; it will come untied when the narrator dies. At the end of the poem, Bradstreet elicits a disheartened but a moving image of her husband honoring her and kissing the paper she wrote these verses. As Bradstreet writes in multiple of her other love poems, she alludes to her sexual relationship with her husband when she urges him to kiss her poem. The piece, like their children, is all that will survive of her if she dies, and by kissing the paper, it will be the way for him to kiss her when she dies.

While the majority of more current poems on childbirth are heartwarming verses, they often appear monotonous. Nevertheless, childbirth, with the lack of modern medicine, was a terrifying occurrence. It might encourage new life, rebirth, and joy, but it also ended in the death of both the child and the mother countless times. Poems rarely capture this mixture of terror, anticipation, and love for the current children as this poem. It is, in its way, the most excellent and memorable poem of its kind.