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Joey Kasper
Dr. Dalessio
ENGL 1020
Mid Term Essay
The Comfort of Society
In today’s world being socially active and involvement in the community are ways to see
new perspectives and a way to fulfill individual duties and responsibilities. It allows us to help
one another when we need it, and the ability to spread knowledge and ideas with one another.
The idea that society is used for making life easier is skewed, this is because society influences
individuals to follow societal norms the way that the majority sees as normal. People who often
refuse to participate and accept social influences have been restrained or punished in the past,
making life miserable, which goes against the idea that society’s influence is supposed to be
beneficial to life. In Frederick Douglass’s “The Heroic slave”, in multiple works by Emily
Dickinson, and in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Maypole of Merry Mount”, the authors show in
their works the costly effects on individuals who do not adhere to social influence, and what they
have to endure to try and escape society for a better life.
In “The May–Pole of Merry Mount” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author shows us the
cruel extent that the Puritans are willing to go to in order for the opposing people of Merry
Mount to conform to Puritan societal beliefs. An example of this idea can be referred to this
quote. “Should the grisly saints establish their jurisdiction over the gay sinners, then their
spirits darken all the clime,” (Hawthorne 365). This shows that when a society feels threatened,
in this case the Puritans, they will go to cruel lengths in order to influence the May people to
follow the beliefs of their society. In another quote one of the Puritans say: “Shoot him through
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the head! I suspect witch craft in the beast” (Hawthorne 366) . The idea of being so terribly
punished makes it so the only way to be free from this pain and suffering is to follow the
influence of society, which is also evident in this quote: “They went heavenward… and never
wasted one regretful though on the vanities of Merry Mount” (368 Hawthorne). Edith and Edgar
were not able to escape the influence of society because their alternative would lead to death,
thus showing how far society will go to influence individuals.
Emily Dickinson’s writings her ideas pertaining to her relationship with the influence of
society is that she rejected large societal influence and the view society has on people deemed
sane or insane. In one of her poems Dickinson writes:
“The soul selects her own society
