Morality Today and in Puritan Times
From the minute readers today open the novels The Scarlet Letter or The Crucible, and read about the Puritans, negative thoughts come to mind. We immediately judge them. We call them strict and mean. We criticize their society, the way they act and we agree with the negative ways they are described. Think ahead a few hundred years. When people read books about us now, what is our description going to sound like? Are we going to be described as rude, or strict, maybe mean, racist, or biased about all kinds of things? Are we any better than the Puritans? In comparing the Puritans and society today, it is important to consider whether anything really has changed. If we have become more moral have we also become more nice? The novels, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Crucible by Arthur Miller, take place in Puritan times. In both of these stories, the Puritans are described in a unfavorable way. When reading about them, we appear to believe we are better than they were. To justify the positive opinions we have of ourselves we look for acts of kindness or love that signify our improved morality. With these examples we can compare today’s society to that of the Puritans and tell if we truly are more moral. We must acknowledge that many minorities in our society are still treated unfairly and we have an unacceptable amount of gun violence, both of these are a few of the many reasons we could be deemed the same or less moral. In The American civil war didn’t end…, written by Rebecca Solnit this point is made, but the opposite message is portrayed in another article titled Jewish Nurse treated shooter – News & Views, written for Sudbury News. Both of these articles help us to understand our society today and where we have come. Today as a whole society we are more moral; we recognize what is wrong and we are actively trying to make improvements, generally we live by kinder morals than the Puritans did.
From the beginning of The Scarlet Letter we could see the attitude the narrator had about the Puritans, and as readers we tend to agree with the narrator. The Puritans were constantly judged and at one point described as having a “coarser fibre,” the quote reads: “Morally, as well as materially, there was a coarser fibre in those wives and maidens of Old english birth….” (Hawthorne 48) Courser fibre is rough, harder, skratchy and definitely not as comfortable as a smooth fabric. This comparison implies that the Puritan women are rough and strict. Similar descriptions continue throughout the novel and the perspective is mirrored in The Crucible.
With the same attitude, but a different story line, in The Crucible the judgment around the Puritans is the same, they are less moral than our society today. The Puritans believed in witches and the devil so deeply they hanged people out of fear. As more and more people were tried as witches, the question of if witches really exist began to come up. Even when a consideration is made that maybe all of this is nonsense, Danforth, the main judge, refuses to stop hanging the victims. He attempts to justify this decision by saying, “You misunderstand, sir; I cannot pardon these when twelve have already hanged for the same crime. It is not just” (Miller 119). The Puritans may have realized that their actions were inhumane and unfair, but they didn’t stop. The victims who knew the nonsense wasn’t true died for the pride they had or for refusing to confess to the absurd accusation. If we refused to change the ways we think of issues because of all the injustice that has happened in the past, then we would never improve our morals and fix problems in society. This quote is equivalent to saying that we can’t get rid of slaves because it is unfair to all the people who have spent their whole lives and died as property of a white man. When we recognize a problem, we have to fight to stop it. Our views change over time, and over time, our morals have become better. The witch trials came to an end, we got rid or slavery, and many movements took place and are still taking place today to improve our society, such as the Women’s Rights movement and the fight for equality for the LGBTQ commumity. Our beliefs as a society are shifting and becoming more moral over time.
We may have come a long way since Puritan times, but it is unquestionable that our society still has many problems and many people in our society have a ways to go in becoming more moral. In Rebecca Solnit’s article she argues, “In the 158th year of the American Civil War, also known as 2018, the Confederacy continues its recent resurgence. Its victims include black people, of course, but also immigrants, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, trans people, gay people and women who want to exercise jurisdiction over their bodies”(Solnit). According to her article nothing has changed over the last 158 years. We have just acquired more or different problems in our society. It is easy to argue because of this our morality is the same or less than the Puritans, but we must consider that many people in society know that victimizing these groups is wrong and there are many movements started by very moral people to end “the confederacy”. No society is ever going to be perfect; the Puritans certainly were not and we are still not today. But today we have to look at how far we have come. The fact that those who identify as transgender or gay are being considered and acknowledged in our community is enough to know that we are going in the right direction. Our morality is changing and slowly becoming better.
Despite the terrible events that happen, we have many very moral people in our society. It would not be true to say that every person in our society is more moral than the Puritans were. There are still many mad people in the world, but a lot of people in our society are moral, and we can not judge the society on the mad acts of a select number of people that happen to get more media attention, but one act of kindness also doesn’t make our society more moral. We can list the acts of terrorism and injustice in our society. But what is harder to list is all the acts of kindness that often go unnoticed. One act of love that is speaks for the many kind people in our society was reported in Sudbury news. The article was about a Jewish nurse who was just treating one of his patients. The first line of the article is a quote from the nurse, Ari Mahler, “I treated [the] mass shooting suspect out of love” (Jewish Nurse treated shooter – News & Views). It is important to know that this article was written after the recent shooting in the synagogue in Pittsburg. Ari Mahler is an example is an exceptionally moral person in our society, who choose to deal with the suspected mass shooter who walked into his office with love. Our society is full of brave people who stand up for what is right and choose to fight back with love like Ari Mahler did. We have rallies and movements all the time. A number of terrible things happen in today’s society, but the number of people who stand up to support after these events and fight for change is much higher. We have come a long way since the Puritans, and still have a long way to go.
In The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, the Puritans are described in a negative tone. As readers we agree with these descriptions and judge the Puritans. After reading Rebecca Solnit’s article and the story of the Jewish nurse, and considering whether we are any better today than the Puritans were, it is clear we have many problems in our society; however, we also have many moral people who recognize our problems and work hard to fix them individually and on a larger level as a whole society. With more morality, kindness comes, too. The Puritans were mean to Hester in The Scarlet Letter. They made fun of her, bullied her, whispered about her, and stared at her. In comparison, Ari Mahler is a very kind person because of his morals. In the future we might be looked back on as less moral people because of the media attention given to the individuals who are angry, uneducated, or mad. This is what is being recorded most often, but if you look for it, you can find stories like the story of the Jewish nurse, or articles about the massive women’s marches that have taken place or many of the other movements. Each of these events displays the morals of those involved. The change in behavior from the Puritan time to now is positive. Under the media and behind all the terrible news stories, lots of people in our society are very moral. Since the 1600s a lot has changed and our society has in fact become more moral.
Citations:
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New American Library, New York N.Y. 2009
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible, Penguin Books, New York, N.Y. 2003.
Solnit Rebecca. “The American civil war didn’t end. And Trump is a Confederate President – His supporters hark back to an 1860s fantasy of white male dominance. But Confederacy won’t win in the long run.” Guardian, The Web Edition Articules (London, England), US ed., sec. Opinion, 4 Nov. 2018, NewsBank,
“Jewish Nurse treated shooter – News & Views.” Sunbury News. The (OH), Final ed., sec. news, 5 Nov. 2018. NewsBank,