Ironies and Contradictions

There were countless instances of ironies and contradictions within this semesters reading. I think a good portion of these results in everyone battling within themselves about ideas. We read things as the time was changing and people had a new way of thinking. Ones writing isn’t going to be consistent always because his/her own thinking isn’t consistent. Everyone was trying to decide what exactly they believed in.

A big example of someone contradicting themselves is Anne Bradstreet. You could see it when you look at her two distinctive voices that we talked about. In certain poems, like “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet, Who Deceased August , 1665, Being a Year and a Half Old,” you could clearly see her Puritan beliefs and up holdings. There were other poems, like “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” that strayed away from those beliefs.

You could probably find ironies in all the rest of the readings from this semester. There was also contradicting views that made it ironic as well. Look at the two captivity narratives for example. In Rowlandson’s, she referred to the Native people as “savages” while Cabeza de Vaca considered them friends. Similar things happened to both of them, but they have such contradicting views.

Benjamin Franklin’s ideas on going to Church contradict hugely with most other people’s. He didn’t think that you had to go to Church to be a good person and have good morals. If you didn’t go to Church, that meant you were going to Hell, at least according to the Puritans. He believed quite the opposite. Going to Church did not define you as a person. What you believed and your actions did.