This dissertation compares attitudes toward death in colonial Massachusetts and South Carolina during their first centuries. Diaries, sermons, newpapers, and legal records are examined and used for a general description of attitudes toward death in each colony which in turn is used for a concluding section comparing the colonies on this issue, suggesting reasons for apparent similarities and differences, and speculating on the significance of these findings. / The evidence examined for this study indicates the presence of two distinct responses to death. Death in Massachusetts was an awesome event. Because of the dominant religious ideology, Puritans perceived dying as putting every person's fate to the test before God, but as traumatic as dying could be for an individual, this uncertainty was not unchallenged on other levels. When the people of Massachusetts wrote in their diaries and journals, listened to funeral sermons, read the newspaper, and observed the actions of their government, they witnessed death manipulated. The key characteristic of this activist approach was the attempt to interact positively with tragedy. Death became an event which perpetuated the ideals of the Bay Colony because it was used to call survivors to go forward with the struggles of living in a "holy commonwealth." / Death was an all too common event in South Carolina. Between epidemic diseases which almost seem endemic, Indian wars, and the accidents associated with a major port city, Carolinians had more than their share of exposure to dying. Because of this intense interaction with death and the religious fragmentation of society, there was no fundamental framework for dealing with dying in this colony. People shared their feelings of sorrow, but they did not have a common means of interpreting the tragedies that surrounded them. In short, they faced death on their own without collective efforts at manipulating tragedy. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-03, Section: A, page: 0731. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_76069 |
| Contributors | MESSER, STEPHEN CHARLES., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 240 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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