What I researched and why: Before this class I had never read or even heard of A Dialogue Between Christ, Youth and the Devil. After reading the piece I was interested, excited to learn more and slightly disturbed all at the same time. The text is not something I would ever give to my own children or to any children that I would teach in a school. Yet, the piece can be found in the 1777 edition of the New England Primer. This book was like a Bible to the Puritans at the time and was the main textbook for private and public schools alike. Even children who were home schooled used this book. It was meant to teach not only what was right and wrong, but things such as the alphabet and simple math as well. Appropriate? I am not so convinced.
What I found: Ok. So, after researching this for about two hours I gave in to the fact that there may not be any other versions or interesting revelations about this text. Everything I looked at related to the New England Primer (1777). This website http://public.gettysburg.edu/~tshannon/his341/nep05pg56.htm
will take you to the page in the 1805 New England Primer where A Dialogue Between Christ, Youth and the Devil is located. There you can look at the entire book and see how it was used to teach many different subjects. The fact that this book was used to teach young children is just terrible in my opinion. I look at this book and see an almost cult-like approach to education. The poems and readings in the book are more like warnings. For example, A Dialogue Between Christ, Youth and the Devil ends with a warning when death comes and says, “Thus end the days of wicked youth, Who won’t obey nor mind he truth…” I think this type of approach to teaching young children would be overwhelming for them and somewhat scary at times.
My interpretation: As I said, my interpretation of this text is that it is warning children about what will happen if they disobey their parents or commit other “wrong doings”. The fact is that children can’t handle this type of text. If a teacher was to give this to a young child, I think they would be terrified. The text is interesting for our class to look at. I think there are many ways that it could be interpreted and many meanings behind each word. Yet, even as I was reading it I thought that it was slightly frightening. The child is literally being told that he is going to die that very day because he insulted Christ. He begs for his life and is denied forgiveness. Were we not brought up to believe that Christ is forgiving and if you ask for forgiveness you shall receive it? This dialogue goes against the things I, and likely many of us, have been told since childhood.
How this relates to our class: For the past few weeks, we have been learning that there are many different ways to analyze every text. A Dialogue Between Christ, Youth and the Devil can be analyzed in many different ways. One way would be psychologically. How does this conversation affect the child? How does his attitude change when he realizes what his fate will be? It is an interesting text with many different possibilities for discussion.
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4 comments:
I do agree with what you are saying. I would never give this text to a child to read. However, in class we have been discussing how fairy tales have continuously became more and more innocent. These new adaptations are what our generation is accostumed to; it is what we think is appropriate. In colonial America children were often thought of as "young adults." They held major responsibilities, got married, and started families before we would even get our drivers permit. With the criticism that we are applying to this text, I feel it is extremely necessary to look at the historical background, because something that we consider inappropriate, would have probably been ok then.
I think that the scariness of the text is exactly why it was used. The puritan is a culture that is not very forgiving as we have seen in our brief studies of their ways and in that respect this story seems to fit in perfectly. I think one would be surprised to see a story about forgiveness coming out of a culture which preached the strictest of doctrines for life and morality. The dialogue, in my view, is not only fitting for children of puritan culture, but perhaps even natural, because to fit in with society one had to live life with no moral ambiguity. That being said, I agree that now a days we live in a different culture where such a text would be frightening and not at all constructive for the same aged child as those who were originally intended to read it.
I agree with both of these comments. I think that the story was intentionally frightening, in order to coax children into submission to the Puritan value system. Also, this piece may not have been as scary to children then as it would be to children, and even adults now. Children probably heard a lot of fire and brimstone sermons during that time period, and reading stores such as "A Dialogue Between Christ, A Youth, and the Devil", merely reinforces the sermons they heard in church.
Daniel wrote that "The dialogue, in my view, is not only fitting for children of puritan culture, but perhaps even natural, because to fit in with society one had to live life with no moral ambiguity."
I agree with what he's saying to an extent, but I wonder if texts like these could have been part of the reason that, as discussed in the Duane article, many of the new generations of Puritans started leaving the faith or becoming less involved with it. Although certainly their aim with a text like this is to make children afraid and be good Puritans, there is something so incredibly repellent and hopeless about this text. I don't think that this would be entirely lost on Puritan children, even though they come from a very strict culture, and they could very well have reacted against these types of texts.
So maybe these stories weren't appropriate after all?
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