Sinful Acts
In Fire from Heaven, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Flea, the authors take a stance on
men and women committing sinful acts and using it as a main position in their work.
They write from a very religious perspective which is probably due to the time period in
which their work was written about. They develop this idea in very different
perspectives to get their point across. They express this position vividly throughout
their work.
David Underdown didn't live in this time period, but his work was a work of history and
his ideas coincided with those of the Puritans. He uses these ideas to take a position
on the Puritan's side and to better explain the good they were trying to achieve. The
Puritans of Dorchester as we have learned about our reading, were a very religious group
who wanted to create the perfect society. Their mission in Dorchester was to make
extinct all the sinful acts of the townspeople. The struggle they started soon ended in
failure. They were a definite influence upon his work. His views of sexual misconduct
between married men and women being worse than that between unmarried people probably
come from his growing up in a more modern world. The Puritans probably did distinguish
some, but it wasn't very prominent or apparent. His makes this point clear in the
passage, "Misbehavior among married people was especially serious, as it was likely to
disrupt existing families, which were of course regarded as the essential foundations of
any ordered, virtuous society(p.66)." The Puritan influence is very prominent in excerpt
from the previous quote, "families,... the essential foundations of any ordered, virtuous
society(p.66)." Underdown also makes a reference to the others towns in the area and how
the Puritan presence made a difference, "It is unlikely that Dorchester people were any
more, or any less, loose in their sexual habits than their neighbors in other place. But
stories of their misdeeds even in the years of the puritan ascendancy are
abundant(p.66)." With this passage the author shows how the presence of the Puritans
changed the total view of the town and its people.
Underdown used the sinful acts between men and women to draw out people and draw a
greater conclusion. This greater conclusion being the cause of the Puritans and how
virtuous they actually were. The point of laying a mark on people is easy to see in the
excerpt, "An assault charge against Parkins in July 1629 was followed by a scattering of
others for swearing, drinking and absence from church. But it was his sexual promiscuity
that really marked him out(p.67)." The charges against were serious and undoubtably
frowned upon, but the fact that he was sexually promiscuous is what separated him from
society. The fact that he, "In September 1629 he was alleged to be abusing his position
as trustee for a neighbor imprisoned for debt, by sleeping with his wife(p.67)." Some
other accounts of his misbehavior are in the passage, "In May 1634 the constables found
him in a upstairs room at Christopher Jenkin's notoriously disorderly house with an
unmarried woman named Sarah Harris, and in the following August he was accused of having
raped Mary Jefferies(p.67)." There was a lot of shame in being involved in such acts
even if the person did not participate willingly. A case like this was mentioned in the
passage, "In January 1635 a more plausible charge of rape was made by Basil Cooke,
daughter of a respectable alehousekeeper, William Cooke. Even then the girl's parents
waited five days before going to the magistrates, during which time Parkins's friends the
Hasselburys (in whose house the incident occurred) offered Basil's mother five pounds to
hush it up(p.68)." There were many other incidents like these written in detail
throughout Fire from Heaven. Through all these documentations Underdown draws up the
big picture of how all these incidents of sin helped overthrow the Puritans. He draws
his conclusion from the thought that the Puritans just couldn't break the Dorchester
townspeople from their sinful habits.
Shakespeare's play Much Ado About Nothing is a play of passion and deceit. The plot
draws its strength from the thought of a sinful act committed between a man and woman.
Shakespeare was a very insightful person to create such complex plots. He creates sort
of small play within the play itself. One of the plays within the play Much Ado About
Nothing is the conflict between Hero and Claudio. The author throws out his passion in
the passage spoke by Claudio,
Out on thee, seeming! I will write against it.
You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown;
But you are more intemperate in your blood
Than Venus, or those pamp'red animals
That rage in savage sensuality (p.96)
In that passage Claudio is denouncing Hero's plea of innocence. He was over come by the
idea that Hero had sexual relations with another before. The lines of this passage
display his anger fluently. Hero has no voice, she has been denounced throughly by just
about everyone. She tries to speak out in her own defense in the passage, "O, God defend
me! How am I beset! What kind of catechizing call you this(p.97)." and the in the
passage, "I talked with no man at that hour, my lord(p.97)." Though she makes these
pleas Don Pedro just slams the door in her face in the passage ,
Why, then are you no maiden. Leonato,
I am sorry you must hear. Upon mine honor
Myself, my brother, and this grieved Count
Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night
Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window
Who hath indeed, most like a liberal villain,
Confessed the vile encounters they have had
A thousand times in secret(p.97).
The truth is finally revealed and Hero's honor is restored, but she is thought to be
dead. So, Claudio agrees to marry another and it turned out to be Hero. The author uses
Hero's supposable affair to bring the audience into the play with the anger and passion
that resulted. Then he finished up the play with a happy ending. The major position of
his play was how wrong it would have been for Hero to cheat on him. Shakespeare
illustrated this play very well, having followed through so well with Claudio and Hero.
John Donne writes a poem of great beauty in the Flea. He uses a flea sucking blood from
a man and a woman to justify an act of sin. He presents this in the passage, "Yet this
enjoys before it woo, And pampered swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is
more than we would do(Lines 7-9,The Flea)." He describes the flea's blood of being more
than one, hence the man and woman. He goes on to say that the bond the flea created is
stronger than any marital ceremony. He claims the flea is their marriage and killing it
would kill part of them. He conveys this idea in the following excerpts, "This flea is
you and I, and this our marriage bed and marriage temple is; Though parents grudge, and
you, we are met and cloistered in these living walls of jet. Though use make you apt to
kill me, let not to that, self-murder added be, and sacrilege, three sins in killing
three(Lines 12-18)." He describes what they have as a bond for life and also a right to
do what they please because what they have is beautiful and pure to the fullest extent of
life. This act of sin is transformed in Donne's poem to a just and beautiful display of
affection between two consenting adults.
These authors use the position of sinful acts as a strengthening point for their
corresponding works of literature. They take the same idea and transform it into their
basis for their work. David Underdown used this idea to exaggerate the importance of the
Puritan presence. Shakespeare took this idea and made it add an element of passion and
anger to give a climax to the story. While Donne used this idea bring beauty and love to
a unjust act. The idea of a sinful act taking place never changed from author to author,
but the way they used it was magnificent to literature itself.
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