"Landscape is about something outside of us without which we would be lost in space...for some of us, the big question is, "Why are we here?" I have never gotten past thinking about what "here" is"
This quote from Gregory Conniff's "Landscape is a point of view" struck me, both personally and as it relates to our recent discussions of the Puritans. The entire reading made me think about how much of a person's character and culture is made up of simply where a person literally is in the world. Would things be infinitely different if I was typing this blog from a high rise in Tokyo or from my childhood home? The pondering of such questions leads me to the idea that quite possibly, yes. Some part of who I am would be different if I wasn't here right now. Different noises might distract me. Perhaps I would be alone instead of sharing my space with my roomate. Maybe I would have completed this blog hours ago because the weather somewhere else was nice and beckoned me outside instead of being dreary and gray. I suppose sentiments along the same lines applied to the Puritans as they ventured from England in search of their new home in America. They came in hopes that things could be different based upon where they were. They believed in the power of location, only to arrive, according to William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation, "weatherbeaten...[realizing that] they had now no friend to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or refresh their bodies; no houses or much less town to repair to, to seek for succour"(70). Perhaps being in such a new world gave the Puritans a taste of the "mystery" Conniff refers to. Perhaps the uneasiness of their new setting, and the loss of comfort caused the Puritans to cling to the only familiar things they knew: their faith and each other. In a sense, coming to the new world may well have contributed to an increased exclusiveness in the Puritan community, setting the stage for future tension with other groups as well as within the community itself, and setting in motion some of the very behaviors which eventually laid the Puritan establishment to rest.
Katie,
ReplyDeleteFirst, I notice that you used a photo of the natural world to head your blog. Thus readers will be imaginatively transported to that landscape as they read!
Second, I wonder if these comments about the natural world in which colonists lived offer insight into the response to Anne Hutchinson. Noting, of course, that Bradford was describing a different colony, we might nonetheless, be reminded of just how insecure the colonists were.
LDL