Mormon Bashing Essay Example

windows into the court, an' I reckon into the house. Jane Withersteen, you know, never locked a door! This here grove's a hummin' bee-hive of mysterious happenin's. Jane, it ain't so much that these soles keep out of my way as me keepin' out of theirs. They're goin' to try to kill me. That's plain. But mebbe I'm as hard to shoot in the back as in the face. So far I've seen fit to watch only. This all means, Jane, that you're a marked woman. You can't get away—not now. Mebbe later, when you're broken, you might. But that's sure doubtful. Jane, you're to lose the cattle that's left—your home en' ranch—en' amber Spring. You can't even hide a sack of gold! For it couldn't be slipped out of the house, day or night, an' hid or buried, let alone be rid off with. You may lose all. I'm tellin' you, Jane, hopin' to prepare you, if the worst does come. I told you once before about that strange power I've got to feel things," (Zane ,Pg. 145)

From the above quotation, it is clear that Jane was under the watch of Mormon “other.” She was enslaved by the control of the elders and other members of Mormon Church. Men were not being watched at all; they lived freely without being controlled. They had liberty to go wherever they wanted. Jane’s properties are destroyed by gang organized in the community, but no one talks about it.

Jane inherits wealth from her rich father. She runs a big ranch and lives with a gentile cowboy and other workers in her farm. She does not strictly follow the

ideologies of the Mormon elders in the church. However, she considers herself a Mormon. Jane finds some of the ideologies such as polygamy and violence being immoral. Therefore, she cannot participate in any even if she faces persecution from the Mormon “other.”

Grey displays the Mormon “other” as polygamous. Jane is confronted with a lot of pressure from the Mormon Church elders to marry Elder Tull and be among his multiple wives. Their level of seriousness about the issue of marrying Jane off to Tull is seen when they run Joe Lake, her Gentile Cowboys down. However, Jane is not ready to marry Tull and become one of his multiple wives. Her refusal annoys all the elders of the Mormon Church. Jane represents the Mormon’s younger generation that is against polygamous marriages. Moreover, she also represents that young and energetic generation of the Mormon that is against older generation’s harsh authoritarianism.

The Mormon “other” is exhibited as lacking respect for women. Tull, a Mormon church elder, harasses Jane just because she is not ready to get married to him. Tull organizes and sabotages her property in the ranch, and there is no one who is ready to point out Tull’s actions as violence against women. Moreover, Lassiter’s sister is ruined and killed by the Mormon community.

The Mormon “Other” has been depicted as thoroughly evil. However, in the read, the Mormon life includes “good” Mormons. The best evidence his is crafted art, Grey offers Jane to his audience as the “good” Mormon. Whereas she is a Mormon, Jane has no element of wickedness in her, and this makes her totally different from the Mormon “other” like Tull who

is polygamous and has no respect for women. Even in this seemingly unkindly anti-Mormon book, Grey still uses “good” Mormon characters like Jane. Jane Withersteen remains a Mormon with what many people would regard as great characters of a Mormon. She refuses to accept the Mormon hierarchy. Furthermore, the Mormon “other” kills Lassiter’s sister but Lassiter makes vows to seek revenge.

Grey depicts Mormon “other” as against civilized ideologies of the Mormon community. The Mormon “other” creates anarchy in the society through rustlers and gunfighters. The church elders such as Tull take part in the negative activities that indicate that they are not civilized. For instance, Tull and other church elders try to force Jane into marriage that she is not ready to accept (Zane, Pg. 150)

In his piece of art, Grey shows the Mormon “other” as intolerant to the non-Mormons. While Jane lives with the Gentiles peacefully on her ranch, the Tull and Dyer view the Gentile Cowboys as a threat to their social order that is divinely ordained. The intolerance between the Mormon “other” and the Gentiles gives rise to bloody consequences. The intolerance attitude of the Mormon “other” has been shown in every scene throughout the story. On the contrary, Jane is the Mormon moderate, and she is very tolerant to the Gentile. Also, the elders of the Mormon Church regard with much aversion the relationship between the Jane and Berne Venters, a rider in the Mormon society who shows that he does not share the faith with the Mormon. The Mormon “other” tries to chase Venters away from Utah, but he is required by a gunfighter called Jim Lassiter. Tull says: "Here,

Jerry," called Tull, turning to his men, "take the gang and fetch Venters out here if you have to rope him," (Zane ,Pg. 140)

Grey portrays his conception of the Mormonism quite clearly in his novel of Riders of the Purple Sage. I have doubt whether he had better knowledge of the history of Mormon in relation to their social life and theology. Therefore, he may not have had the intentions of writing “Mormon novel” that ultimately based on the Mormon. His Mormonism viewpoint might have been based on his region that was a combination of pantheism, Christianity, Deism, and Evolutionism. I think in such organizations, the novel may be considered obstructive by many modern Mormons.

However, at the end of the novel, there is an indicator of Grey’s wish for reconciliation. Jane accepts Fay and raises her in the Mormon’s home, however, without Mormon doctrine. Fay’s mother iterates that, “Because you are a Mormon I never felt close to you till now, I don’t know much about religion as religion, but your God and my God are the same.” Moreover, when Withersteen, Lassiter, and Fay are separated in the new Eden of Surprise Valley at the conclusion point of the story, a creedless child is created in a family made up of Mormon mother and a gentile father. This shows the key point of the transcendentalism of creedless generation of Mormon “other.”

Grey’s writing is more formally “literary” than naturalistic. Furthermore, the story is controversial considering the anti-Mormon sentiments are in contradiction with the story told in the “Heritage of the Desert” (1910). The Mormons may have been sympathetically portrayed in the book of “Heritage of the

Desert” (1910).

Conclusion

The main reasons for the existence of literature are to generalize, heighten, and intensify so that truth can be achieved at a certain level other than zoology or sociology. Conclusively, Grey’s crafts a piece of work that is very much controversial to the expectations of the Mormon community. In his book, he uses both moderate and immoderate Mormon characters that bring out the idea of anti-Mormon and demonization of the Mormon ‘other”. While in the moderate Mormon character, one is able to see loving, caring, and civilized individual, the converse ideas such as violence, evil and polygamy can be viewed from the immoderate Mormon. I agree that the book not naturalistic but a formally “literary” novel.

Works Cited

1. Zane, Grey. Riders of the Purple . New York: Harper & Brothers, 1912.