Drapier's Letters

Throughout the mid-1800’s, the time period that Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, the Puritan society in the New England colony abided by strict codes of conduct, many of them strongly influenced by perceptions of gender roles. Here, men were perceived as authoritative figures, while women were highly condemned due to constant accusations of crimes such as witchcraft and adultery. Set in Boston during the late seventeenth century, Hawthorne’s romantic novel depicts the story of…

Deception in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and its Effects In Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Oskar Schell and his Grandfather lie to their close ones, which creates emotional distance between others, as they believe truth can be more painful to share. Throughout the novel, many of the major characters lie to each other to avoid confrontation. There are different size lies for different situations. Most of these lies aren't malicious, they are used as emotional…

In his sonnet, “Thou Blind Man’s Mark,” Sir Philip Sidney uses an apostrophe as a way for his speaker to address their complex feelings toward the subject of desire. The speaker explains that desire has the power to both mentally and physically blind people, causing them to strive towards instant, materialistic gratification rather than true self-satisfaction. However, these feelings seem almost ironic as it appears that through discovering the true face of desire, the speaker found a new…

others are defined by it. Overcoming a cowardly situation means accepting and admitting flaws. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses his main characters in The Scarlet Letter to show how they failed and became cowardly. Hawthorne gave these many challenges to Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth and Hester Prynne. Throughout the book The Scarlet Letter Arthur Dimmesdale was challenged many times and each time he failed, proving he was in fact cowardly. From the very beginning Dimmesdale hid the fact that…

Morality in Shades Colour is in the art and the art is literature. Often, one depicts morality the concept of shades: a color scheme that involves the gradation from lightest to darkest, which in most case, is white to black. In such scale, the shades white and black represent two contrasting extremes as they parallel the idea of morality, where white is right and black is wrong. However, the complication arises at the area between the white and black: the grey. The grey area possesses no…

“The Glass Castle” Essay Sophia Pittman Forgiveness is the main idea of “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls. Throughout her novel, Walls proves that even though her childhood was full of neglect, she still loves her parents unconditionally. Unconditional love is another theme that ties in with forgiveness throughout the story. Even though she desperately wants to get away from her parents and leave behind her catastrophic life, Walls still loves and forgives her parents. I can relate to her…

A character within a novel can either change positively or negatively. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, author Nathaniel Hawthorne makes use of character development technique to show how each individual changes as the novel progresses. Through the description of a character from the beginning and their development at the end of the novel, the character becomes real. This is apparent in the transgression of Hester Prynne and Pearl in the short novel. Although Pearl is portrayed to have been…

“It was from that moment I began to hate them, and my hate is still the only link between us today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first of the faces of hell and death.” Chapter #1 Page #17 This quote represents the chapter by showing how the things occurring around Elie are not right. These are also some of Elie’s first signs of real, negative emotion towards someone and how he is unhappy with the situation. It reveals the first steps of their oppression and how unjust they are…

Universal Truths of the Human Condition The Scarlet Letter, although written in the 1850’s, continues to speak truly about many universal truths of the human condition. The Novel displays all-consuming effects of guilt on a sinner and how it can be worse than the punishment itself, although religion can guide a person, it can not guide a government, and that no person is without sin. As displayed by Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, guilt can affect a person worse than the punishment for the crime.…

Grendel Hatred is a beautiful thing. It can make one grow from being so innocent and curious to cruel and evil. Most creatures grow with love like little plants, while I was grown with hate. Growing up, I didn’t know other creatures existed besides my mother, why you might ask? You see, we are forced to pay for someone else’s sin, even though we are innocent. Therefore, my mother and I were banished to a region where even demons are afraid to enter. Which explains why I am the demon I am today…