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Alexandra Stallo
Anne Bradstreet and Her Religion
2053
American Literature EH 201
Mysti Nichols
No matter how often times change and writing changes, authors will always have
to use some type of theme in their creations. In the case of Anne Bradstreet, she
prefers to chiefly utilize the theme of religion. Throughout this essay, the following ideas
of Bradstreet’s Puritanical influences are discussed: her strict Puritanical influence was
in constant battle with her trying to maintain her individuality, her daily trials and how her
religion helped her persevere though them and her family’s strict religious beliefs.
Bradstreet seems to always include God in her works and how her religion has helped
her get through life’s hard times and how God showed out in her life. But, just because
Bradstreet is very religious does not mean she is not afraid to be independent and
express her own feelings and ideas.
Anne Bradstreet was a very independent woman when it pertained to her life and
her religion. She lived in a community that “was antagonistic to imagination. (Jabbar
115) Bradstreet wrote from her own imagination because her ideas were mainly based
off of the Puritan ideas in her head. The typical Puritan woman was one who
administered to her family and followed strict guidelines of the Bible. But what
Bradstreet expressed through her writing was a little more different. In one of her
poems, The Prologue, Bradstreet expresses that she is “just a woman” but always
compares herself to Great Bartas; a man who is looked very highly upon in her Puritan
society (Byam Robert 208). She also chose to write a great deal about most of her
personal beliefs and show how God has helped her, which was her way of spreading
God’s word to her readers.
With Anne Bradstreet’s Puritan beliefs, she was able to make it through all of her
trials and tribulations, which occurred a lot in her life. Puritans believed that suffering
was a way that God was preparing them to accept His grace. Between not being able to
have children, having them and them becoming sick and being sick herself, she had to
maintain enough strength through just about everything. Sadly, the majority of the topics
of Bradstreet’s writings were negative things that have happened. But, she does use her
religion to show a more positive side of it. For example, she has a poem entitled The
Burning of our House where she tells the story of how her house burned down. “And to
my God my heart did cry To strengthen me in my distress” (Bryant Robert 232) is just
