The Scarlet Daughter
The Puritans, Protestant separatists who were rigid and extremely devout in religious beliefs, mainly believed in Total Depravity, the Doctrine of Election, Predestination, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, Perseverance of Saints, and a good name. The Puritan goal was to figure out if he/she was apart of the elect. The Scarlet Letter and Rappaccini’s Daughter both by Nathaniel Hawthorne were written in the 1800’s. Hawthorne was not a fan of Puritanism; he felt it was too strict and demanding in one’s life. He used his beliefs in the creation of The Scarlet Letter, which was set between 1642-1649 in Boston, Massachusetts. The novel demonstrates the typical behavior of the followers of the Puritan religion. During …show more content…
A common theme between the two works that shows this divide in conflicts is isolation. In The Scarlet Letter, Pearl was isolated from the rest of the townspeople and especially the other children. She and her mother lived in a cottage on the outskirts of town, which limited her contact with others, especially other children. Because of this, she could never fully understand the proper way to interact with people, and she did not know how to react in/deal with certain situations. On page 86 of The Scarlet Letter, the narrator says “Pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to make acquaintance. If spoken to, she would not speak again. If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble, because they had so much the sound of a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue” (Hawthorne.) Pearl’s only friend was her mother, and although the rest of the town saw Hester as a perfect example of how NOT to turn out, Pearl had no idea that she had sinned and looked up to her. Pearl’s actions towards other children …show more content…
The theme is that there is good in all the bad; for example, Hester’s “A” represented a horrible sin, yet the beautifully embroidered “A” showed Hester’s abilities regarding needlework. On page 50 of The Scarlet Letter, the narrator describes the “A” as: “on the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter 'A.' It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony” (Hawthorne.) Throughout the whole novel, the beauty of the “A” is described many times, and Hawthorne does a great job of putting a specific image in the readers’ minds. Although the “A” symbolized adultery and sin, the beauty shone through. Similarly in Rappaccini’s Daughter, the flowers, beautiful but deadly, are described multiple times: “There was one shrub in particular, set in a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of purple blossoms, each of which had the lustre and richness of a gem; and the whole together made a show so resplendent that it seemed enough to illuminate the garden, even had there been
The Puritans, Protestant separatists who were rigid and extremely devout in religious beliefs, mainly believed in Total Depravity, the Doctrine of Election, Predestination, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, Perseverance of Saints, and a good name. The Puritan goal was to figure out if he/she was apart of the elect. The Scarlet Letter and Rappaccini’s Daughter both by Nathaniel Hawthorne were written in the 1800’s. Hawthorne was not a fan of Puritanism; he felt it was too strict and demanding in one’s life. He used his beliefs in the creation of The Scarlet Letter, which was set between 1642-1649 in Boston, Massachusetts. The novel demonstrates the typical behavior of the followers of the Puritan religion. During …show more content…
A common theme between the two works that shows this divide in conflicts is isolation. In The Scarlet Letter, Pearl was isolated from the rest of the townspeople and especially the other children. She and her mother lived in a cottage on the outskirts of town, which limited her contact with others, especially other children. Because of this, she could never fully understand the proper way to interact with people, and she did not know how to react in/deal with certain situations. On page 86 of The Scarlet Letter, the narrator says “Pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to make acquaintance. If spoken to, she would not speak again. If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble, because they had so much the sound of a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue” (Hawthorne.) Pearl’s only friend was her mother, and although the rest of the town saw Hester as a perfect example of how NOT to turn out, Pearl had no idea that she had sinned and looked up to her. Pearl’s actions towards other children …show more content…
The theme is that there is good in all the bad; for example, Hester’s “A” represented a horrible sin, yet the beautifully embroidered “A” showed Hester’s abilities regarding needlework. On page 50 of The Scarlet Letter, the narrator describes the “A” as: “on the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter 'A.' It was so artistically done, and with so much fertility and gorgeous luxuriance of fancy, that it had all the effect of a last and fitting decoration to the apparel which she wore; and which was of a splendor in accordance with the taste of the age, but greatly beyond what was allowed by the sumptuary regulations of the colony” (Hawthorne.) Throughout the whole novel, the beauty of the “A” is described many times, and Hawthorne does a great job of putting a specific image in the readers’ minds. Although the “A” symbolized adultery and sin, the beauty shone through. Similarly in Rappaccini’s Daughter, the flowers, beautiful but deadly, are described multiple times: “There was one shrub in particular, set in a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of purple blossoms, each of which had the lustre and richness of a gem; and the whole together made a show so resplendent that it seemed enough to illuminate the garden, even had there been