"They believed, in short, that they held in their steady hands the candle that would light the world. We have inherited this belief, and it has helped and hurt us" (Miller 5).
What do think this passage means? What is the "candle"?
Do you agree that modern Americans have inherited this Puritan attitude? How has it helped or hurt us?
15 comments:
The candle represents faith and the power of religion. These people thought that their religion would save the rest of the world from the darkness and evilness of other religions. Like most religions, there was a certain air of hubris that their religion was the best and only real way. The puritans thought that the only real way to live and they the were the true, steady source of goodness that would spread throughout the world.
Yes, America has inherited this Puritan attitude. The war in Iraq is a perfect example of this. We think that Democracy and Christianity are the best and only ways to live so we think that we must spread our way of life to the rest of the world. We do not understand that other people can have their own ways of life and that we are not the only people with the "candle" to light their world.
I think that this candle is ultimately belief. When one believes something, part of the belief is the desire to spread it. This can be religion, but it can even just be an opinion. It has a lot do to with inate draw of human nature. One doesn't want to lose, so they will argue their point, and therefore try to spread their belief.
This has helped us, because through it we have spread wonderful things like Democracy to other nations. But it also hurts us, because that desire, that passion, that what YOU think is correct, causes us to fight. Not only through war, but in families, relationships, and all around.
I think we need to learn how to balance this and incorporate discipline into our lives, so that we can accept that sometimes we are wrong, which the Puritans found hard to believe.
I think the candle represents your point of view and what kind of things you see when you walk out the front door of your house. We all believe that, our way is the "right way" and if other do not follow that, they will end up getting hurt in the long run. In The Crucible, the puritans believed that their religion was the best and it would drive all the evil away from this world. Each and everyone in Saleem would conform and, if someone tried to rebel, the whole society goes insane.
I think "the candle" has hurt us in various ways. In life, being stubborn and not being open to new ideas will only lead to unsuccessful goals. We need to be open to new ideas and new methods of incorporating them.
This passage means that Puritans believed they held the key to getting on God's good side and that everything they did was exactly as God wanted, and the Puritans felt they should spread their religious beliefs to the world.
I think it is very hard to compare Puritan ideas to America. America is full of thousands of religions who all try to spread their beliefs, but America as a whole does not have a singular religion to spread. What America does try to do is spread freedom and liberty. Both America and the Puritans try to spread things to other groups/countries, but what they are spreading is very different.
I think that the candle represents religion and belief in God. Puritans believed that they could share the light of their beliefs with the rest of the world. Though, they thought that anyone who didn't believe in their ways, was wrong. It helped people believe in their own ways, but hurt in a way that excludes people that do not all think the same.
Americans have inherited this attitude with the way that we as Americans live our lives. I agree with what Laine has to say about how Americans have inherited the Puritan attitude.
Light has always been a represented as a guidance, a security, a good thing. The candle represents faith, like laine said. The Puritains spent their whole lives connecting wiht God and trying to be the best "children" they could. They thought that faith would conquer and situation, just like light. This has helped us and hurt us through out life. By believing too much in our faith some would say we are with our "head in the clouds". Wehn people leave everything up to fate, they never go to extents to reach those goals... they just think that they will happen. This could be useful because it allows us to always have a safe grounding. When we are in trouble we can look to faith, as our security blanket. Faith helps set us up for success... but not putting things into your own hands and leaving it up to faith could cause conflict.
I think this passage means the Puritans believed they had the power to change the world whether good or bad. Some who hold this power can make the world a better place. Others maybe feel overwhelmed that there is too much to be done and not change the world for the better. Instead they sit around watching others change it or working against those few good people. The candle represents power of change.
I do not believe modern Americans have inherited this attitude. The majority of people are very selfish and only want ot do somehting that will help them and bring them higher in society. Although I do believe this attitude has helped us. Those few who do try and change the bad in this world have gotten far and influenced others.
I'm loving your depth and creativity here; thank you for offering me several new perspectives of a passage I've examined for six years.
Here's something else to think about: Miller wrote this play in response the McCarthy trials of the 1950s. Who might have been the "Puritans" of his society, and what was the "candle"?
The candle represents the light at the end of the tunnel for me, like faith, power or religion. I think that since the candle is a light of hope in a sea of darkness, it should represent someting comforting. At the same time, I also think that it represents ones own beliefs. Whether it is beliefs to your self or as a community. This could help people unite, but also cause controversy with other communities or countries. I think an example of this is the Iraq war or war in general. Usually, the root of the problem is "we don't agree with your way of doing things, so we are here to change it and make it our way." Beliefs cause tons of controversy, but at the same time, they are very important.
Shauna--I really like your analogy of the light at the end of the tunnel.
I agree that the candle represents power. They believed they were at the top of the world, in control of everything, and taking most of it for granted. I think this is wha Jonathan Edwards was warning the Puritains about in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
Americans today are a lot like this. I just read an email today about how 2/3 of Americans weren't happy with the direction the country was headed. Jay Leno then responded to that speech asking which Americans it was that weren't happy: the 70% owning their own homes, the 95% with jobs, or the 90% of teenagers who have cell phones and computers? We Americans definitely take this all for granted and feel like we are so powerful. This quote relates to that feeling, and the unhappy events that followed seemed to be just what Edwards warned was going to happen.
I agree that the "candle" represents the Christian religion, but I also think that it just means our culture and way of life in general. Its like they believed that their way of life is the only good way of life. This has pretty much always been the case in history. Everyone always thinks that they are better and everyone should be like them. This happened when Columbus sailed to America and he swa these dark, naked people that must be "savages" because they don't even where clothes, so they try to impose their culture on the tribe because they think that they are helping them. It has happened countless times and is even going on right now. I think this shows that we as humans are just afraid of being different and sometimes we think we are helping when we really aren't.
Wow, these comments have all been fascinating to read!
This passage communicates to me that the puritans feel that they have the power to spread the message of Christianity within them. I remember, there's actually a verse in the bible that talks about being the light in the darkness. This has been passed down generation to generation of Christians, and it has helped and hurt them.
It has helped because they are encouraged to continue forth with the message to the world. However, it has also hurt them in how they present this message. They aren't open to any ideas or any other people than this set image stuck in their heads. It's hard to share a message of love when you're not even practicing what you preach through your presentation.
I think that modern Americans have somewhat fallen from that attitude. More and more, people are into accepting more and more differences between races, religions, and cultures. It has helped somewhat to branch out to others instead of looking down on them from our high and mighty stance. This has also hurt us because it has become harder and harder to decide what is truth and what we believe.
For Miller, the candle most likely symbolized the movement against communism lead by McCarthy in the 50's. This candle both helped society as well as hurt it. In theory, this anti-communist movement might have been ideal to rid the U.S. of communism. In reality, the movement was not executed well when random people were unsubstantially accused. The puritans in Miller's mind were probably Joseph McCarthy as well as his supporters.
This passage sybolically represents the religion of the puritan belif. The candle's light symbolized the spread of their belif. I think that modern americans have accepted the fact that we are better than every other states. This has been the thorn that lie in our achelis tendon. Our imperialism has just brought other nations to hate us, and some nations to fear us. The only way in which this has helped us is that we, infact, have more oil.
I completely agree with Annika. I believe that the candle symbolizes belief. Of course, when you believe in something, you want others to feel the same way. So, you try to enlighten them and have them see things your way. Similar to 'showing them the light.'
I do think that modern Americans have inherited this attitude because we apply it in the world today. It's as if we want the rest of the world to see everything our way. We aren't very open to change and different opinions.
This has definitely hurt us because many countries don't wish to change their ways to be like America's. We have made many enemies by trying to change their countries to be more like ours.
I think that to be more successful in life, we need to be open to other ideas and the fact that we will never be right all the time.
I think that the candle in this passage just means that the Puritans thought that their religion was the only way to God. The passage seems to suggest that the Puritans were, in a way, egocentric about their beliefs, thinking that practicing their religion was the only way to live and the only way to eventually get to heaven. I think that modern Americans have inherited this belief in some ways because as Americans, we constantly hear how our country is the best in the world. We are constantly reminded of the freedoms we have in the U.S. because of our democratic government, and this leads to the egotistical belief that our country has much more to offer than any other country. I also think that since we as Americans have freedom of speech and religion, we also begin to believe that the religion or belief system we are raised with is the only way, and in our minds we are secretly prejudiced against beliefs that go against our own, and cannot understand why others would choose to believe differently than we do. I also agree with what Laine and Annika said about the U.S. trying to spread Christianity and Democracy to other nations and the belief of some people that our way of life is the ONLY correct way to live causes many conflicts.
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