North American Literature

Interpretation of North American Literature and the Concept of Original Sin

From the birth of the North American Colonies to the present day, the concept of evil has pervaded the culture of Western Civilization peoples who migrated to America in hopes of a more provident, spiritual, and elevated culture and station in life. America, founded upon liberty, life, and happiness and other ideas from the Enlightenment, began its long struggle for flawless and lawful perfection of morality and spirit from as early as the founding of Jamestown. The bible was used as both a divine set of laws and a metaphor to explain the superstitious, anomalous, and new terrain that the English would eventfully encounter as they explored, searched, and conquered America.

The origin of evil in North America was based in the fictive versus the imaginative. The concept of fiction versus imagination started long before settlers even landed in America. The concept that the world was round, amalgamated with stories of worldliness, splendor, gold, and exotic spices in the Asian “indies”, casted the land East of Europe to be a land of opportunity in the minds of navigators who thought that they had found the Indies. What Europeans found when they reached America was often far from the splendor explained in stories by Marco Polo and others. In fact, they were nowhere near the Indies. Nature, ore, animals, and fertile land existed in various forms in America, and would continually challenge Western settlers in their hopes of living prosperously and morally.

However, the fictive vs. imaginative construct did not cease to exist. Just like several of the accounts written at the time, it can be imagined that the socio-cultural history of the time was vague and possibly romanticized and exaggerated. The bible played a key role in creating a sense of things in the early settlements that were altogether unknown to men, many of whom came from cities with streets and pubs and police officers. However, several different religions existed in America, and bible verses were interpreted differently; the difference between southern Baptist views of slavery versus northern Protestant views would strike at the core of the country’s social and economic system, culminating in the Civil War.  Scenes of violence and killing immediately become prominent. Usually reasons for disputes were twisted or based in vengeance and intolerance. Violence became a staple of American culture and fuels the creation of the first American adventure story. Cross-race romance and violence was explored. It became a fascination. It was also immensely deplorable and was prominent in slavery, war, and even within the aristocratic pleasure of worldliness. The view of original sin could be seen as a nihilistic view of society. Based upon John Calvin’s education and view of society in Europe, it was determined that humans were a fallen race. However, no matter how sinful a race may think (or even know) it is, there will always be those within it who want others to face humiliation for their sins, as seen in the Scarlett Letter later on. Fictive accounts, unrepressed violence, lewd sex, and original sin were the basic foundations for the concept of general evil within the early American colonies.

The concept of evil was used to separate that which was sin from that which was not. If one were to commit a sexually deviant act, or to steal from a neighbor, you were then considered a sinner. You then were punished. Those who stalled the gain of American providence, enlightenment and moral superiority were considered evil. That which was destructive to the needs and wants of the settlers, be it even inanimate, was evil or was used for the pleasure and gratification of the settlers. Sin was conceptually shifted from merely a local political sphere to the sin of those external people and concepts that challenged the life of settlers. Indians fought against the westward intrusion of the settlers. Settlers then decided, that using the bible as a guide for behavior, that those Indians were sinners on several different counts. For one, they were sinners for not having converted to Christianity. “Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen.” (433) Of course, they could also be considered sinners for a range of laws as interpreted by the Westerners that are located in the bible such as stealing from the settlers.  The bible, then, was both strictly and loosely read to justify the unrelenting hatred of sin in others. “Natural men’s prudence and care to preserve their own lives, or the care of others to preserve them, do not secure them a moment.” (433) The bible was used against evil forces within the colonies, and evil forces outside of the settlements such as unnatural beasts, nature, and people. “The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present … The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow…” (435) The imagery here is largely of the great waters surrounding America, and the bow and arrow of the Indians. The bible became the founding of the personal relationship that each had with God and each other, as interpreted by a minister in most cases, that allowed for the ousting, denial, disclusion, or discrediting of any one who didn’t follow the mission of the settlers in their long term journey to spread, prosper, and grow away from the perceptibly accursed civilization which they left.

The nature of sin was such that sin was the worst thing that anyone could do in life. There was little grievance for evil doers, and hostility towards sinners was inequitable in most cases. Furthermore, many of the allegations of wrong doing were based on superficial reasons. Punishments were often over the top and downright cruel and unusual. By the era of the Deep South, if a slave were to even flirt with a white woman, he was liable to be hung out lynched merely because of his skin color. Native Americans were considered utter savages, despite their close relationship with nature, and their economical choices that lead to their survival and the renewal of nature and wildlife. It is also safe to say that had it not been for the Native Americans, many of the early settlements would have perished or suffered worse losses because the Native Americans shared farming and agricultural techniques. Regardless, fear and hatred was rampant, and was not simply “European versus other continent natives.”

The concept of original sin pervaded “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God” by Johnathan Edwards. “That they were always exposed to destruction … exposed to sudden unexpected destruction… they are liable to fall of themselves… and do not fall now, [is due to the fact that] God’s appointed time is not come.” (430) The way this is stated, over the course of four bulleted paragraphs, implies that there was strength in repeating similar statements. There was no originality in each of these assertions, but surely they were meant to drive at the point that sin is alive, destruction is around us everywhere, and God is the only thing holding this society together. “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.” (431) The “mere” pleasure of God is placed there to serve as an example of the immensity of God’s “fickle” love with man. “…It makes no objection against God’s using His power at any moment to destroy them.” (431) Within this, Edwards sees the world of man as a continuing downward spiral and as a destruction both unplanned but powerfully controlled. In Edwards view, God is more powerful than any group that stands against him, and God casts men to hell as simply as a worm is stepped upon, in a second without repose. There is very little equivocation in his Edwards view, and what strikes the reader as odd, is how much the concept of strength and bigness plays a role in Edwards reading. The view of predestination is to the point that there is no way out but hell.

The fact that the settlers were both leaving the comforts of a society which they considered wretched and settling upon a land that was uncultivated and filled with mystery, danger, and conflict led them to lead a resonating fight. As the model of providence and as the model of the frontier against anarchy, despotism, and tyranny, American settlers naturally had the proclivity to endure hardship. They claimed their own freedom. They harrowed that which stood in their way. All the while, they retained the spirit and efficacy to fight against the cruel world that seemed to throw a monkey wrench in their plans at every turn. Of course, the sinners amongst them would be a problem because consanguinity was needed to win against the external aggression towards the settlers. By making evil a permanent, everlasting figure of society, it became easier to find a deep relationship with a God that had no toleration for those that wished ill-will to the settlers.