Anne Bradstreet's Here Follow Some Verses Upon The Burning Of Our House

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Anne Bradstreet’s Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House not only embodies her metaphysical fears of hell, loneliness, and judgement but also accurately reflects the Puritans’ ever growing skepticism on the concept of predestination. One of the fundamental ideas in the Puritan religion is the belief and fear of hell, a fiery place where sinners go to burn. Another idea of early Puritanism is the belief in predestination, where you could potentially be born destined to go to hell, events in your physical life could be signs of whether or not you were destined to burn for eternity. With this background information we can infer that the narrator and contemporary Puritans had a fear of hell. We can also infer this from line 6 of the poem, “That fearful sound of ‘Fire!’ and ‘fire’” (6). That fire, and therefore the metaphysical place made of fire, was a terrifying notion for the narrator.…show more content…
It is only logical that a sense of despair and loneliness follow. But due to the time period and the surrounding culture, the sense of loneliness goes deeper than just in the physical sense. The speaker’s fear of desolation can be seen on line 8-10, where the author uses personification to connect herself to the narrator’s fear, “And to my God my heart did cry…not to leave me succorless” (8, 10). Bradstreet and the narrator are afraid of being alone without help, so they cry to God, asking Him not to leave them. If the sign of the burning house was true, then the narrator would go to hell and be disconnected from the most central and saving figure in Puritanism, God. It is a fear that would be held by all Puritans, that without God, they would be forced to spend an eternity in hellish
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