Puritanism on Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras is a traditional Catholic celebration before Ash Wednesday. It signifies the beginning of Lent and it is one last celebration before the period Lent begins. During Lent, one is supposed to give up something until the Easter Holiday. This celebration, when compared to Puritanism is a stark opposite to what Puritans viewed the days before Lent. For Puritans, the days before Lent were supposed to be for prayer and reflection; Mardi Gras is the opposite. Now days, Mardi Gras has turned more away from the traditional and has been lost in translation with the growing popularity of flashing one's boobs to get plastic beads. While, indeed Mardi Gras is supposed to be a time of celebration, it is still a religious holiday as well. In many countries, especially in Venice, people wear masks and disguises so that one could partake in bad behavior and not be recognized. In America, Mardi Gras was brought by the French settlers into the Louisiana territory. One group of people settled in the New World to create a community of religous purity and a couple hundred miles away, settlers brought the corruption of religion from mother country with them.

For Puritans, Lent represented was a time for extra restraint in order to become more religious or to prove that they were "saved". For the early settlers in the Louisiana territory, the days before Lent represented a period of utter freedom to do as one pleased before a time of reflection.