105) Here stood that Trunk, and there that chest There lay that store I counted best: My pleasant things in ashes lye.Anne uses the proper application, interpreting the event as a warning, and as an injunction to look toward the house on high erect. But the vacillation in the poem suggests that the sense of loss outweighs, at least at times, the potential comfort promised by Puritan theology. (Richardson 106) In the critical essay by Ann Standford, Anne Bradstreet Dogmatist and Rebel, she tells us that Anne Bradstreet comforts herself with good Puritan dogma. (76) That the burning of the house should not be questioned, but she does question it in the three stanzas where she lovingly goes over the contents of the house the questioning being through feeling tone rather than statement. As she passes the ruins she recreates the pleasant things that had been there. Despite the reasonable arguments that her goods belonged to God and whatever God does is just, there is in the poem an undercurrent of regret that the loss is not fully compensated for by the hope of the treasure that lies above. (84) Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666 is one of Anne Bradstreets most effective poems. Part of that effectiveness comes from the poignant tension between her worldly concerns, as represented by her household furnishings and her spiritual aspirations. As Wendy Martin says the poem leaves the reader with painful impression of a woman in her mid-fifties, who having lost her domestic comforts is left to struggle with despair. Although her loss is mitigated by the promise of the greater rewards of heaven, the experience is deeply tragic. (75) Anne Bradstreets feelings about her home represent the most material conflict. When her home burned down she wrote the poem to voice these feelings of hers. She des...
