Union College Union | Digital Works Honors Theses Student Work 3-2021 An Analysis of Religious Extremism Through Memoir Sydney Lewis Union College - Schenectady, NY Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Lewis, Sydney, "An Analysis of Religious Extremism Through Memoir" (2021). Honors Theses. 2397. https://digitalworks.union.edu/theses/2397 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Work at Union | Digital Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Union | Digital Works. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Lewis i An Analysis of Religious Extremism Through Memoir By Sydney Lewis * * * * * * * * * Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in the Department of English UNION COLLEGE March, 2021 Lewis ii ABSTRACT LEWIS, SYDNEY: An Analysis of Religious Extremism Through Memoir Department of English, March 2021. ADVISORS: Professor Jennifer Mitchell and Professor Anastasia Pease This thesis investigates the physical and mental factors extremist religious organizations, such as the Westboro Baptist Church, Church of Scientology and Fundamentalist Mormonism use to decrease the chance of members’ departure from their institutions. These factors include familial relationships, physical and mental limitations, and restricted exposure to society outside of the religious organization. The following memoirs illustrate and expose these difficulties and how the female authors overcome these limitations: Educated by Tara Westover, Beyond Belief: My Secret Life Inside Scientology and My Harrowing Escape by Jenna Miscavige Hill and Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church by Megan Phelps-Roper.