Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault

In the 1630's and the 1640's, the Puritans traveled to the colonies to detach from their opinion of a convoluted Church of England. They set up towns and started new lives that were all based on their idea of a pure religion. The Puritan's definition of a pure religion did not include many of the ideas of the Church of England. They built the colonies and made a system based upon the idea that God was the most important aspect of life. Puritan ideas and values influenced the political, economic, and social development of the New England colonies from 1630 through the 1660’s by spreading their beliefs into every facet of daily life. Politically their ideas regarding what was considered sinful behavior and how power was separated among the

Erikson explains that to most English people of the 16th century, Puritans became an annoying sect of rebels. Overbearing and unrelenting, many detested the exaggeration of conventional values that the Puritans displayed. Feeling restricted by the formalities of the Church, Puritans quickly became deviant in the eyes of society. By moving to Massachusetts Bay, Puritans hoped to create their own ideas of what is “right” and “wrong”, much like any community attempting to set boundaries. However, problems arose when laws were to be mandated in a Biblical sense. God could not sit at a pulpit in a courtroom, so then how would a strictly religious group maintain itself? As Erikson states, “one of the surest ways to confirm an identity, for communities as well as individuals, is to find some way of measuring what one is not”. From this, they developed a keen sense of Devil distinction – that is, ways in which the Devil presented himself through the behaviors of individuals.

Fire from Heaven, the first book out of a three-book series covers Alexander the Greats life from ages five through twenty years old. The novel is written by Mary Renault, who focused most of her writings on Ancient Greece and some philosophers of the day. Fire from Heaven was written as a historical bildungsroman, opening with Alexander waking in the middle of the night to find a snake wrapped around himself. He believes this to be Glaucos, one of his mothers, Olympias, snakes. Alexander makes the attempt to take it back to her, sneaking past some guards and into her room.

The Puritan’s political, economic, and social development in the 17th Century was prompted by the ideology that God had bestowed upon them the power and the mission to spread Christianity to all the people of the Earth.

Dorchester was by all means, a fairly successful town by the time the 17th century came around. However, at the beginning in 1613, a fire ravaged the city changing it and its inhabitants. While the men and women of Dorchester had seen changes throughout English rule for years, they were about to experience some more. Occurring a decade after the monarchy of England changed hands from the Tudors to the Stuarts, the fire in Dorchester was almost symbolic. As the fire changed the shape of the city, so too would the Stuart’s rule on the people of the city. While not as prominent of a city as one such as London, Dorchester is one of many cities across England that reflect the change of the kingdom within its own existence. Towns and cities like Dorchester evolved just as the country did when reformers

In Puritan belief, life was planned according to God, and a society worked to live out that plan. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was a closely integrated group that worked together to fulfill the wishes of a larger community. Puritans religious beliefs produced ideas that God’s will was to lead a community based on peace. God had set high expectations for a happy and trustworthy community. However, if a community did not live up to the expectations, God would destroy the community. Therefore, Puritan leaders felt the need to enforce strict rules so Puritans could not disobey the ideals. If anyone did not conform, they were called an “impostor” who did not belong in the community. If Puritans allowed freedom of worship, dissenters would not be banished from the community because all ideologies could potentially exist peacefully. The only time dissenters existed were in communities that limited freedom of rights.

During the 1630’s, there was a group known as, the Puritans. The Puritans immigrated from England to America, for the sole purpose of religious freedom and their belief that the church of England needed reform. Puritan author’s, Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards, conveyed their messages and beliefs in their writing . For these two authors, they were working around the same foundation, Puritanism, for the intended messages. Admittedly, there is a disconnection in belief between the two. Edward’s writings take Puritanism to the extreme whilst Bradstreet’s works show a more traditional view in the religion while staying true to it.

Activism, culture and value have always had a tremendous influence in society. When it comes to the Appalachian region of the United States, people tend to see our culture and values differently. The individuals of the Appalachian region have been stereotyped for far too long, people forget that West Virginia has played a huge role in building this country. Our coal miners have put their lives in danger time and time again, some losing them, for worker’s rights. The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest labor rebellion in the history of the United States. This was the foundation of the movement for eight hour work days and minimum wages. The novel Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina is a fictionalized tale of the conflict that took place in these coal fields of West Virginia. The novel brings to light the stereotypes, race and religion of the Appalachian people.

Puritans should be pat on the back for setting the basic fundamentals for the colonies to follow. “You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, 'I'm a representative.” –Maya Angelou. Politically, the Puritans started out with a limited democracy, mostly male full church member were considered citizens. Later on they developed a representative democracy this became the primary principal for New England. Socially, their society was intolerant of other religions. During this time they did not get along with the Catholics and hoped to purify the Church of England. However, as time grew on, slowly,

The 17th century Puritans were known to represent a religious group migrating from England to America in order to practice religious freedom. These groups were determined to “purify” churches of England from Catholic practices. Puritans are known for their religious, social, and political influences on early America. Edmund S. Morgan’s novel The Puritan Family highlights a part of history that many would tend to look over upon- that is, the complex structural life of Puritan Families in the 17th century.

The Puritans, arguably the most well-known group of early English colonists settled in the Massachusetts Bay colony in the 1600’s, and are considered catalysts to modern American culture. The Puritans are famous for their theological insights, advances in the sciences, and for the establishment of the first public schools in America. The Puritans however are infamous for their potentially brutal punishment, and harsh discipline. To the devout Puritan punishment was love, this was evident in the ways they raised children, punished criminals, and how they lived. These policies played a major role in shaping American society for many years and in part made America what it is today.

Puritans may have tried to give themselves the appearance of a perfect society, but it was really just as corrupt and full of sinners as any society today. In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Crucible by Arthur Miller and “To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet, there is evidence for this. In Puritan literature, although they try to hide it, sin is very common, in that Puritans do the opposite of what they preach, but still harshly punish those who sin.

In the 1950’s the melodrama genre came to age and there is no better example than Douglas Sirk’s All that Heaven Allows. The melodrama followed some basic characteristics which can be identified in the film. First and foremost the narrative of the melodrama focused on the family. All that Heaven Allows follows the narrative of the typical melodrama but at the same time also challenges the social conventions. While Sirk follows many of the key themes he does so in a more detached fashion. The protagonist Cary is bound to her community by her social class. Change was occurring in society and the melodrama displayed people’s restraint to this. In All that Heaven Allows Sirk began his focus on the female and her desires in contrast to the more conservative male focused melodrama. As with the melodrama the legibility of the story, displayed through the plot, is simple and easy to follow. “Our engagement with the story depends on our understanding of the pattern of change and stability, cause and effect, time and space” (Bordwell and Thompson, 2008). The linear time flow of the film allows for it’s simple understanding. This is added to by the expressiveness of the melodrama, where everything is brought into the open and nothing is left unsaid. The expressiveness of the melodrama is also represented in the highly expressive mise-en-scene. Sirks use of colour, the human figure, camera work, lighting and music allow him to portray suppressed meaning and significance.

Seventeenth century Puritans had several aspirations, successes, and failures when it came to creating a model society. They had many successes in their society, some examples are their education system, their advancements in equality for women, and the way they created a tight knit close society. Although they had many achievements, the Puritans also did fall short in many aspects of their society. They ultimately did fail at their perfect society, and that is a very important aspect since that was their main goal. They also were very strict about their policies regarding the church. Once the generations progressed, they had to create new rules to allow people basic religious rights such as baptism. They also fused church and state, which was necessary in a society such as this, but it ultimately hindered progression such as allowing non church members to vote. As the years progressed more and more non Puritans entered the Puritan society, this hindered society because eventually the small majority was making the most riveting decisions. Ultimately the Puritans had both failures and successes when attempting a model society, but the weight of the failures simply outweighed the successes.

The Puritans goal in New England was to create the perfect pure society where nobody sinned and God ruled completely. They attempted this by making laws about and regulating every aspect of life in the colony. To achieve this, the church needed to rule the colony. And if the church ruled the colony, only the real Puritans could be part of the church. They believed only a minority of the population pure enough to be a part of the church. In reality very few people were ever able to give enough evidence that they had completed their part. As a result, two-thirds of the population failed to qualify as church members. The Puritans enacted many laws to keep the non-Puritans living religious lives. They created an official whose only job was to check up on ten families daily to see if anything out of the ordinary was happening and to make sure everyone who was able went to church. Their idea was that everybody, even if they weren’t part of the church, should be very religious. Therefore they created their laws with principles based on the Old Testament. They dreamed of a society where everybody followed the laws and lived a peaceful, god-fearing existence. To make this dream realizable, the Puritans created severe penalties for breaking the laws. These ranged from whipping and being thrown in the stocks for minor offenses, to banishment and death by hanging for serious ones. To be a good Puritan one had to work hard all