Colonial Literature and Ideology Literature often highlights ideology and mindsets representative of its time. Today, one can see a vast array of novels with post-apocalyptic tones, giving off a sense of the fear of the world ending that many people have today, as well as a distaste for the conformity seen in today’s culture. During the Colonial period, common mindsets in literature centered around either Puritanism, or Rationalism, and focused primarily on real life, which accentuates both ideologies. A prominent example of published Puritan ideology can be seen in the widely known sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards. The sermon accentuates key points of Puritanism. The sermon pleads for people to live not for the day, but in hopes of heaven. The sermon draws quotes from the Bible to prove its accuracy in its teachings, and in order to best sway the audience. Because the Puritan mindset was …show more content…
Prominent Rationalist Thomas Paine aptly illustrated many Rationalist beliefs of the time. As he wrote in Common Sense, “a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.” His words indicate the Rationalist value questioning throughout life in order to properly discover the truth, and form beliefs. A further expansion of Rationalist views are seen in Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, in which at one point, he goes into detail his conquest to live more perfectly through self-improvement towards his morals. He selects a list of morals based on his own faults, and where he is susceptible to fault, and takes it upon himself to seek to correct these. Such ideas provide outline for the way Rationalists might choose to live, and may have asserted their