Matthew Jack Buchanan
Honors English Literature
Holly Elizabeth Omlor
1/11/2008

Cultures are constructed upon the idea that there are certain expectations for a person and
certain taboos within the society also. It comes to be expected that individuals or sub-groups who
do not meet the criteria or dabble in the taboos are then condemned for the rest of the culture. This is based on the belief that in order to protect the group in a state of well being such rules need to be constructed. These rules create, between the person and society, a contract. American culture is no different in this aspect than any other society. Throughout the nation’s history though, the majority concepts of how strongly vices should be dealt with has fluxed and while at the same time decline at different rates. This influx is caused by the introduction of new ideas or evidence which debunks the negative ideas of the vice or makes the belief that more is gained than lost when such a action is preformed.
The early Colonial writings contained, within the most part a strong intolerance for any ideals which did not fit their own ideals of how life should go on. This comes inpart because a large presence of Christian extremist who had been lead to leave England because the Anglican Church would not reform in the ways which these extremist believe would purify the church. This group of . The Puritans would use within their society the fear of god and damnation from this high power to keep attempt to keep peace. The time of Puritan intolerance would construct within itself one of the darkest times of American history known as the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. It was during the unfortunate event that fear of the strange and the belief of the devil would lead to the conviction of nineteen men and women to death on the charge of performing in witchcraft. Their was often little or no proof except here-say and was normally directed to those who were not within the social circles of the area. One of the most talented writers and a minister who used the fire-and brimstone method, a style of persuasion that uses the fear of eternal damnation in hell, was Jonathan Edwards . He is revered for his sermon Sinners in the Hands of An Angry Godwhich was presented 1741, in which Edwards places down the Puritan view of how a man is judged( Arpin, 45). He believes that sin is contained within all men which he expressed as “it is natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit”(Edwards in Arpin, 46). Edwards continues on to say that there is only one way to prevent being damned and that is to accept Jesus Christ as their savior. Edwards says that anyone who has “no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them”(Edwards in Arpin, 47).
Preceding the age of strong faith-based condemnation, the American people reached a
time when the focus was not upon the way that ones religious affiliation was considered but how
a person acted. A man's actions was take more than simply his beliefs but still the wrong decisions still hold mighty consequences . This would become the era of the Romantics ,which spawned around 1800 and lasted until the American Civil war(about the 1860's). One of the ring leaders of the Romantic movement was the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne uses damnation as a common topic in his books even by presenting the Puritan use of the damnation in his novel The Scarlet Letter. What could be taken as the ideas damnation within Hawthorne’s own time can be seen within his short story Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment. In this tale, four elderly people are given the chance to be young again. Each of them had been foolish in their youth and now suffered for it. Mr. Medbourne had been a merchant but had got greed and became consumed by debt (Hawthorn from Arqin, 227). Colonel Killigrew had been a lustful boy in his day and suffers pains in his joint (Hawthorn from Arqin, 227). Mr. Gascoigne had been a politician but pride seemed to over taken him and his past seems to follow him for being “infamous” (Hawthorn from Arqin, 227). The last of the quartet of vice is the Widow Wycherly who had once been beautiful but was taken in by vanity so, when her beauty faded with age so did her only attribute (Hawthorn from Arqin, 227). These four are all anxious to become young again and swear that they will not go back to their old ways. Within minutes of turning back the years, though, their old demons return and their wisdom seems to leave them. This turns again pain as the men begin to warm-blooded fight over the widow which cause the table which had held the elixir that made them young turn over. Hawthorne uses this story to present one of the main concepts of damnation which is that vices embody that which is negative to either the body or the soul. He presents how it was these vices which had not only formed them into aged pain-stricken people but would make it that they would lose their chance to ever be young again. Their vices still remained within for all these years it was only time which had slowed them down.
The decline of damnation would continue to decline on into the next statge of American thought known as the Realist. This decline because the idea of good and evil had been placed into a grey area. This was in response to the idea that neither side of the Civil War, Confederate or Union, had been completely right. The Realistic writer Kate Chopin displays this idea that social vices had lost their threat of damnation within her story A Pair of Silk Stockings. In the story, Mrs. Summers uses money which she knows should be used on spent on her children on luxuries for herself such as play tickets, silk stockings, a fancy lunch and a magazine. She delights in that she has freed herself from her responsibilities even if only for a little while. Chopin wraps the escapade by writing that Sommers had a “longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever” (Chopin, 508). Chopin leaves out that idea that Sommers will suffer any for the vices which she just took part in. Sommers only regret seems to be that her time in sunshine has ended or as Chopin put it “it was like a dream had ended” (508). Sommers lacks within herself temperance at this time. This is not Sommers liberating herself from her daily life or her place within society. This is her trying to satisfy fleeting desires with no consideration for all those who she is connected to by the social contract. It would appear though at this time that the contract is not being enforced well.