Introduction

One of the most enduring works of Edmund Morgan, ‘The Puritan Dilemma’, which was published in 1962, is still regarded as a good starting point for the understanding of the motivations or reasons behind the migration of the Puritans to America and the political and ideological challenges they encountered when they arrived. Winthrop is the one who said that the new territory would be like a city on a hill, a new example of a society for the whole western world. The author demonstrated that this expression covers the Puritan’s somewhat miserable neglect of the political revolution that was brewing back in England. He also examines the cost of the search for true society in terms of personal freedom as well.

The contradiction and incongruity in Winthrop himself reflect those of the whole Puritan colony and further America, that is, what does freedom mean? And what is the correct role of the person or individual in the community? How could it happen that a group of people seeking for freedom of worship cast Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson out of the community? The author examined the issue of freedoms severally, most perfectly in the American Slavery- American freedom; however, this short brief biography lays bare major American problems with elegance, conciseness, and a constant perception debunking the simplistic use of he puritan label by our culture.

Body

Puritanism was superficially just a belief that the hierarchy of the Church of England should be changed as well as the ceremonies and traditions that were inherited from Rome. However, those who had been seriously involved in the belief knew well that Puritanism demanded more of the person than just the church. Immediately it took possession of an individual, it was hardly ever shaken off and would actually shape, some would refer to it as warping whole life. Puritanism was a strong and undeniable power. It did great and wonderful things for America and England, but only crating tension in men and women it affected which was an unbearable pain.

Mr. Morgan examines how John Winthrop battled the dilemma, the first one was internal, that is, his dealing with the issue of whether to going to the New World signified a selfish form of separatism, the need of separating or isolating himself from the dirty or impure England, or whether as he ultimately determined, it provided an exclusive opportunity of setting an example for all people by building a shining city on a hill, a pure Christian society in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

What the author is successful in showing in the text is that even three hundred and years ago, Winthrop was already dealing with most of what would be lasting challenges and themes of the American experiment. Nonetheless, the struggle over the way the democratic America need to be, has been at the center of American politics. Separationism would ultimately result to revolution, thus leading to the split with the Great Britain and would then come out most devastatingly during the civil war. Elitism has actually been evident in the tough history of America’s race relations together with the periodic bouts of xenophobic anti-immigrant zeal or fervor.