“Early American Murder Narratives”
Reading: Karen Halttunen, “Early American Murder Narratives: The Birth of Horror,” in Richard W. Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears, eds., The Power of Culture” Critical Essays in American History (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993), 66-101.
In this masterful essay, Karen Halttunen not only traces an important cultural change — from the Puritan execution drama to the 18th-century murder narrative — but she also provides a compelling analysis of the significance of “the birth of horror.”
This essay requires careful reading. As Halttunen moves forward in time from the 1600s to the late 1700s and early 1800s, her argument becomes increasingly sophisticated, until she pulls everything together in the final few pages. Be sure to read the entire essay.
To understand Halttunen’s argument fully, it’s important to know how she uses the words liberal and liberalism. She is not referring to our modern-day political distinction between liberal and conservative. Instead, she is using liberal to refer to a worldview developed during the 18th-century intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment. According to the liberal vision, human beings were essentially good, and they were able to act with a large measure of freedom. (Note the contrast with the 17th-century Puritan worldview, in which humans were essentially sinful and therefore had limited ability or freedom to pursue the good.) I’m going to leave it to you to figure out the role of liberalism in Halttunen’s argument, but know that it does figure into her central conclusions.
Here are several questions to consider as you read:
- Read the first two paragraphs of “Early American Murder Narrative” very closely. What change does Karen Halttunen say that she is exploring? What “historical significance” does she cite for her work?
- According to this essay, what important social and cultural functions were played by the Puritan ministers and Puritan beliefs, within the context of the execution drama? Does Halttunen cast Puritanism in a favorable or unfavorable light?
- How did post-1750 murder narratives differ from execution sermons? How did they explain evil?
- What major shifts or transitions does Halttunen describe? (From X to Y.)
- What’s the largest and most significant argument that Halttunen makes in this essay?
Note: If you found this article to be interesting, check out Halttunen’s book-length study of murder and horror, titled Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination.
September 12th, 2007 at 8:40 pm
I thought it was very interesting how Halttunen explained how people treated murder and murderers in the past and how that changed over time. It almost seems as it the Puritans treated a murderer as a sort of example for the community teaching them not to sin. If someone committed a murder it was the whole communities fault for not helping that person get back on the right track. Today our idea of a murderer is that they are a social monster who needs to be locked away and kept separate from society as there is nothing we can do. It all goes back to the nature vs. nurture discussion. Does the community in which a person is raised and lives contribute?
September 12th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
What I found to be the most interesting part of this essay was the fact that the sermon was not read as a statement specifically against the condemed, but rather a reflection upon the community as a whole. These execution sermons were not designed to be a public display of execution for revenge or public humiliation of the condemed prisoner, but rahter to be used as an example of what path not to follow which may lead to sin. It also was a way for the community to acknowledge what had happened, learn to cope with it, and move on.
September 13th, 2007 at 9:48 am
The most interesting thing to me was how the acounts of murder has changed overtime. The Puritans didn’t seem to want to go into the gory details of the murders to make a statement. They rather just tell what happened then focuse primaily on lets fix it and don’t end up like this. Today I think our society is very different in that we have to know every little gory detail. We look at their background and say well they would have done this anyway they had a rough life. I also think it a little disturbing that since the begining of our great nation people have always been facinated with death and coruption over the common good.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I noticed that everything, from the execution to what actually happened, was told and witnessed by the entire community yet the actual murder was hidden. It seemed to be a control tactic to separate the criminal and the masses so that the masses would stay obedient. As time went on and the masses spread out, you noticed published reports of what happened, where it happen, and what is going to happen to that person. The fact is that murder is wrong and a majority of the people are not going to kill another, but to say this will happen if you sin or use as a scare tatic it just enforces control.
September 13th, 2007 at 10:39 am
How the Puritans executed people for murder seemed a little familiar to me. It is much similar to what we do today. No, we don’t have an execution sermon (not exactly). We do execute people for murder though, and it is done in front of other people. Today the murderers are given a last supper and last words. Back then they let the person give a “last dying speech.” They killed people then to set an example of what happens to sinners. Don’t they do the same thing today?
September 13th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
I agree with Stephanie’s saying “Don’t they do the same thing today?” They were set up as example’s then just as today because we are living in a society in which we are controled. To live in a society you need law and order over the individual’s within its society. Otherwise individual anarchy would arise. Today the form’s of punishment have just changed with the time’s you dont’ see us crucifying people anymore do you? Today when we do execute we merely give them a lethal injection of some sort time’s change, punishment changes, not the purpose…
September 13th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
In the first couple of paragraphs, Halttunen tries to describe the act of murder being disruptive towards the community. A change then happens during the eighteenth century which the execution sermon becomes that of a horrific crime. The ideas of Enlightenment turn away from spirituality and to that of science and nature. Halttunen suggests that the ideas change from finding salvation to horrific writings. In response to Stephanie’s question, I think over time today’s society doesn’t stress so much of murdering someone as a sin like the Puritans did. I think that people today seem more disconnected with religion besides being bombarded in the news with murders nationwide. As a society, we have been subjected to it for so long it usually doesn’t affect us like it would have back in the Puritan time.
September 13th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
One thing from this article that I thought alot about was how the Puritans didn’t look to find a motive for a murderer’s actions. In today’s society, the media will jump to conclusions without hesitation and scramble to figure out the cause of the heinous action. To think that a murder could take place and no one would step forward to question why seems unfathomable to me. Did the people who were murdered prior to 1750 not have families who would be upset, grief stricken, and demanding answers to why their family member was killed? Or did the Puritans’ sense of community overshadow the idea of a close knit family?
September 14th, 2007 at 7:01 am
In response to Matt and Stephanie, I’d like to suggest that executions today are carried out in a different spirit and with a different method. Without romanticizing capital punishment, it’s important to note that pre-modern executions took place within communities, with much of the community present, and the Puritans had a ritual for reconciling the condemned and the community that he or she had assualted.
By contrast, modern-day executions are carried out behind closed doors with only a few witnesses, outside of a community or a coherent theological or moral context.
The end result is the same, insofar as the state is taking the life of a convicted criminal, but the social (and perhaps in some cases personal) meaning seems quite different.
September 16th, 2007 at 8:09 am
I believe it was the Puritan’s intense religious faith that kept them from placing judgment on the murderer. Finding forgiveness within their hearts for a heinous crime committed against a family or community member exhibited deep religious convictions. The purpose of the execution sermon was to remind the community that all people are capable of evil. This belief ultimately served to bond the congregation together. Today, crimes of horror are sensationalized and serve to remind us how different we are. I feel it is this kind of philosophy that drives people further apart.
September 16th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
I found the this article to be a little funny and ironic. When a group of people is in power, they do what they think will help them. Therefore they remind others of how bad of a life they live and they really cast a light on their sins and do-wrongs. It was funny to me that this plan seems not only to fade but also backfire. As a result, we have a society that is obsessed with murders-who commits them, when they were committed, why they were committed and the gross details of it. And as a result, it comforts our society in knowing that we are not as “bad” as those who committed murder.
It is also ironic because, as some of you stated, our society it still holding criminals at the pulpit and showing the world how bad they are so sometimes we force ourselves to take a look at our lives and how we must change it.
September 16th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I found the discussion of murder by Halttunen fascinating because she addresses a progression of how we cope with evil. The various horrific murders were definitely sensational which is how we presently view them.
The evolution from execution sermon to horror drama parallels paradigm shifts which society has experienced from explanations of a geocentric to a heliocentric universe, corporeal to molecular matter, and supernatural to natural phenomena. The early Christians (Puritans) attempted to explain evil by attributing it to a supernatural element through belief that we are all capable and culpable because of original sin. In contrast, the modern scientific (natural selection) view, analyzes how human beings commit unnatural acts naturally. Which is to say, what natural (physical/mental) defects does one possess which motivates one to act in a certain way? Motive (cause) became naturally individual as opposed to collectively supernatural.
I don’t think that the Puritans “forgave” a murderer, but rather understood the world as evil and believed heinous crime revealed how evil was capable of corrupting the soul. Although plausible, the shift from a mystical, chaotic universe to observation of an ordered, natural one has made for interesting tensions regarding our approach to evil.
September 17th, 2007 at 8:38 am
At the invitation of Professor Voelker, I visited your website and had the pleasure and the honor of reading your comments about my essay, “Early American Murder Narratives: The Birth of Horror.” I’m impressed by the carefulness of your readings of the essay; as a colleague of mine said when she read the blog, “They really got it!” What struck me about your comments was that most of them focused on the Puritan treatment of murder–which is largely alien to us–rather than on the modern, liberal, Gothic response to murder–which I think continues to frame our reaction to the crime. If I were able to attend your class discussion, the question I’d want to ask is this: Do you agree that the Gothic cult of horror is founded (ironically) on our fundamental faith in the goodness of human nature? Does it really make sense, for example, to say that a film like “The Texas Chain-Saw Massacre” depends on an understanding of human nature as fundamentally good, free, and rational?
One more thing: This blog is enormously impressive, and I suspect that Professor Voelker is a superb teacher. And I’m NOT just saying that because you have all been so generous about my work!
Thanks for reading my essay, and reading it so closely and sympathetically.
September 17th, 2007 at 9:11 am
I believe the Puritans had the correct idea. The whole community should get involved with the punishment or counseling of a community member. It should be looked upon like it was a family member. The judicial system does not care about the person they convict. Yes he is a criminal and needs to be punished but one has to look further as to just convict a person. We need to make the criminal aware that his action where wrong. They need to be educated, and counseled so that in the future he might think before he acts. I feel the court system is more like an assembly line. It tries to convict as many people as possible, and never gives help to that person.
September 18th, 2007 at 9:03 am
I think that since murderers are now executed behind closed doors and with few witnesses, the community does not get the closure it needs. When the Puritans read the execution sermons, the entire community was present to hear it and then heal as a community. It was like saying, “Yes, this man killed someone. He knew it was wrong. Now he has had to face the community and died knowing that everyone he knew was present.”
Today, the murderer is not forced to face his community at his execution. The community then doesn’t get the closure it needs.
September 18th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Puritan Murder Sermons were an interesting way in dealing with the execution of a community member who had fallen into evil and committed an atrocious sin. In contrast with the way we deal with murderer’s in today’s society, placing a strong divide between us and them, Puritans came together as a community with the convicted killer to recognize the “evil” that exists in the world. I agree with Richard that the community didn’t forgive the murderer. But by coming together they certainly realized a vulnerability that exists inside all of us to fall into sin, and with this perspective probably found more reason to live accordingly to Puritan practices recognizing the darkness which preys on individuals who are not strong in their faith.
September 18th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Chase makes a fantastic point! We as a society today are not even close to what the puritan believed their role in executions were. They almost “rallied around” the killer. Today we look at the murderer as a monster and a person worth nothing to us. Are we really a tolerant and loving society for thinking this way? The puritans believed that they had certain responiblility for letting this person get this way. It would be interesting to see what kind of world it would be if we thought that way?
September 19th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
I agree with what most of the people are saying. The Puritans blamed themselves when a murder occurred. They supported the murderer to try and show them the right path. In today’s society we blame everyone else for mistakes. As a society we tend not to help people to get on the right path either.
September 20th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Why not join in? In agreeing that Puritan’s blamed themselves for what happend in there own communities. In that they did look inward compared to what we do today in placing the blame outward from our own community and blaming those whom did it an not asking ourselves maybe it was us who messed up along the way? Personal self blame is a powerful thing and possible a tool for denial.
September 20th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Agreeing with Michelle on the bases of the Puritans taking in the murderer as a social problem not an outcast is true. In today’s society we are too eager to point out a murderer as a social outcast and just send them off to die. As pertaining to question number two above I believe Halttunen set up Puritanism as a favorable way of life. She showed the Puritans as a community based society, not an individual one. When someone committed a murder it was considered to be the whole communities’ fault, by allowing that person to fall into the hands of the devil. So yes Halttunen did shed a favorable light onto the Puritans by show their strength as a caring and compassionate community for their fallen sinners.
September 20th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
It is interesting how there is a dramatic difference between the portrait of murder today as it was in the timeline of this essay and within the lifestyle with the Puritans. With Puritans, murder was more of a sin for all who knew. It didn’t matter if the neighbor was the convict, or if it was someone whom no one knew. It was simply a social community sin. In this essay, Murder is more portrayed as a white lie would be. Individuals would attempt to “cover up” to protect one another. And today, murder is a social and governmental wrong. Reading this essay helped take a look at how communities change socially and ethically over time.
September 21st, 2007 at 3:31 pm
The shift in the social description of murder from the Puritan to the Gothic view seemed like an acknowledgement by many that punishment for murderers was to be the paramount concern, and that attempting to rationalize their action as the result of innate depravity was branding all people as evil when it was really only the murderer who was evil. And although this shift occured a couple of centuries ago, it is still the dominant line of thought on this matter, although there are still religious people whose thoughts would be more in line with the Puritans.
September 21st, 2007 at 5:59 pm
I definetely see a strong sense of community in this article. As many others have pointed out as well, the actions of one person was directly correlated with the actions of the entire community. This idea is somewhat retained in today’s society. When someone acts wrongly, we tend to find blame in something whether its how they were treated by peers or what type of music or other media they were interested in. The only thing different is that today, when someone commits a horrible deed, we try to distance ourselves as much as possible, whereas the Puritans embraced the person and tried to help them [their soul] as best they could.
September 22nd, 2007 at 9:18 am
I agree with Jordan on this one. The whole murder itself was always hidden, but they parade the offender out in front of the masses and execute them to hold the masses in check. I think they used it as a scare tactic, as in they are saying if you do the same thing this is what is going to happen to you as well.
September 24th, 2007 at 11:44 am
FINAL COMMENT
Most of you seem to accept the idea that the Puritans had a stronger sense of community than more modern Americans. This sense of community, rooted in shared beliefs, seemed to extend even to murderers who were being executed.
As New Englanders (and white Americans more generally) accepted a more positive view of human nature, they could no longer fit heinous criminals into their vision of humanity.
I would agree with Professor Halttunen, then, that contemporary horror films — and our labeling of some criminals as “sick” — help protect a shared faith in the general goodness of humanity.
The contrast that Halttunen sketches between the Puritan and liberal views might also lead us to question our modern-day picture of human nature.