Identity Annihilation in Ann Bradstreet’s Poetry

Abstract

A ‘City upon a Hill’ has always been the phrase which depicted the ideal and the perfect society the puritans sought to establish in Massachusetts, yet there can be several discrepancies noticed within their social and intellectual life and the way they dealt with the female intellectuals and poets. The current study tackles the way puritan patriarchal society marginalizes female writers and intellectuals, such as Ann Bradstreet, in a way that demolishes their identities. It also aims to depict these female intellectuals as breakers of the social norms in challenging the Puritan spiritual authority and its social system, so their writings were not valuable, and their voices were not heard. More significantly, the study shows how the social/religious conventions created within the puritan were used as a weapon against female writers. Thus, for puritans, the idea of women being writers or poets was not acceptable.