Outside Reading Digital Journal #1

          This quarter, I have been reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I have found some connections to what we have been studying in this book about Puritanism. One thing I found that connects to Puritanism is that the women who took care of Huck were constantly telling him that he should have good manners and be respectful. This connects to Puritanism because a big concept of Puritanism was the importance of living a proper lifestyle. Puritans focused all the time on trying to live perfectly.

          I was able to make another connection with Puritanism in this book when it talked about religion. One aspect of religion found in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was simply when the widow would say a blessing before meals. Something else I noticed in the book involving religion was when the widows were telling Huck about how he should do good things on Earth so he could go to the "good place" and stay away from the "bad place." This must be referring to Heaven and Hell, which ties in with the idea of predestination in Puritanism. However, there is a difference between the Puritan idea of predestination and the idea of the "good place" and "bad place" in this book. According to Puritan belief, predestination is thought to be determined before life on Earth, while in the book, it is thought that how you act on Earth reflects on where you go after death.