Religious Toleration
The dramatic description of Catharine Maria Sedgwick's Hope Leslie seemingly to be a romantic novel is true. However, most seem to overlook the compelling thought of Religion and how it ultimately changes the story in the smallest way. Earlier pronounced in the novel, the character William Fletcher is forbidden to marry his distant cousin Alice, on account of religious difference. The era and place where these characters lived there was no religious toleration. When William left England, he moved to Massachusetts and started a home city. Naming the city "Bethel", he had in mind the Biblical Israelite's. In England, the pronounced religion of choice was Protestant. Obviously there were others who were of other denominations, but did so in secret. After William is banned to marry the love of his life, he chooses to move to the New World, where there they were open and tolerant of different religious backgrounds. This opening act of the story sets the tone and begins to paint the bigger picture of the different problems that initially began the Puritan movement to the America's.
Sources: American History Through Literature, ©2006 Gale Cengage
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