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One of the major themes in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is guilt. Guilt is a powerful emotion that can have a huge impact on a person’s life. It can lead to feelings of shame, anxiety, and even depression. When someone is guilty, they may feel like they are not good enough or worthy of … Read more
“The Scarlet Letter” is a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne that was published in 1850. The novel is set in Puritan New England and tells the story of Hester Prynne, a woman who is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her clothing after she is convicted of adultery. The novel explores themes of sin, … Read more
A slave is a person who is legal “property” of another person and is forced to obey and work for them with no problems. Hester is a woman in the book The Scarlet Letter who is an adulterer, who obeys everyone with her punishment. Hester is described to be a slave of her own sin. … Read more
In The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the great sins of three Puritans secretly tied together by their sins, living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Hester Prynne begins by committing adultery with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale shares this sin with her, but he continues to sin as the next seven years pass. Roger … Read more
To defy a family, practice, or even a life style is an arduous challenge considering one’s willingness to give up their cultured protection from society and take responsibility as an individual. The strength in a person who believes that success comes from surviving the struggle of fighting the consequences that society imposes on defiance is … Read more
“The Scarlet Letter and the Antislavery Feminists” Jean Fagan Yellin, in her essay “The Scarlet Letter and the Antislavery Feminists,” argues that The Scarlet Letter’s motifs and language reject the doctrines of the antislavery feminists and instead reinforce patriarchal norms and ideas. Yellin’s purpose is to reveal Hawthorne’s rejection of feminist ideals in order to … Read more
Misogyny, Conformity, and Obsession: A Feminist Criticism of The Scarlet Letter “And do you not know that you are Eve? God’s sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you, she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God… Woman, you are the gate to hell! … Read more
Lies are told around the world multiple times during the day. Everyone sitting in this room has probably once today, said a lie. Sometimes lying is understandable for someone’s protection but sometimes the truth is essential to the person. There are multiple things people say in a day that are seen as lies such as … Read more
When analyzing the countless number of religions world wide one can’t help but notice the recurrent belief in confession. Confession is defined as admitting or acknowledging some form of fault. Along with confession comes the freedom from one’s guilt and anxiety. In “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Dimmesdale is a puritan minister who … Read more
Define “crime. ” Define “sin. ” Are all crimes sins? Are all sins crimes? Explain your response using examples from your education and current events. Crime is breaking a law that is in place by the government and that a person could be put it in jail for. A sin is breaking a moral law … Read more
Morally Ambiguous Characters What does it mean to be morally ambiguous? The characters created by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Francis Bret Harte are divided between being purely good or purely evil. The environments that the characters live in are judgmental and hypocritical. While being isolated from society, they also deal with struggling to disassociate themselves from … Read more
“O, a story about the Black Man, how he haunts the forest” (Hawthorne 175). A collaboration between three major symbols can be seen as Pearl, the daughter of the main character, asks her mother HesterPrynne to tell her a story about the Black Man in the forest. Pearl is a changing symbol who started as, … Read more
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet letter, we are presented to a Puritanical society that resides adulteress Hester Prynne, whom must wear a scarlet letter to mark her shame. Within the novel, Hawthorne uses detailed descriptions of nature and introduces comprehensive characters such as Arthur Dimmesdale and Pearl with the intention of portraying the central … Read more
Some works of literature portray childhood and adolescence as times graced by innocence and a sense of wonder. Others portray it as times of tribulation and terror. In J. D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, childhood seems to be shown more as times of innocence. Childhood is praised by the protagonist Holden Caulfield, as he … Read more
The Scarlet Letter is one of the first novels ever written to feature a strong female character as the lead role. Hester Prynne is punished for committing adultery against her ex husband Roger Dimmesdale. She is to be punished for seven, horrific, lonely years of her and her daughter, Pearl, lives. In The Scarlet Letter … Read more
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a book depicting the struggle of a woman who is spared death after committing adultery in a strict puritan society. The woman, Hester Prynne, was spared death only for the reason to make an example to the rest of the community. Throughout the book you can see the … Read more
Nathaniel Hawthorne uses romanticism to portray the human soul under extreme pressures. Romanticism emphasizes individuality, imagination to discover truth, and values intuition over reason. Then, Romanticism branches out into Dark Romanticism, which embodies horrific themes, presents that individuals are prone to sin and self-destruction, affected psychologically from sin and guilt. In “The Scarlet Letter”, Nathaniel … Read more
Many punishments in the Puritan society are public. The point of this is to humiliate the “criminals” and make them feel as if they need to repent. There is nothing that the magistrates enjoy more than public confessions of the guilty (in text citation). The Scarlet Letter was written in the 1850’s and was based … Read more
