Drapier's Letters

impressive masquerade of who they really are as a person. In Shirley Jackson’s short story The Possibility Of Evil a quaint town is watched over by a Matriarchal who tries to eliminate the “evil” the town has been afflicted with by sending out offensive letters that insult the way the town people live their lives. Ms. Stanrgeworth’s quest to emancipate the town from the towns evils has really only caused more problems and deluded her mind into thinking she has assisted her town. Ms.…

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born July 4th, 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. His father died in 1808 of yellow fever when Hawthorne was only four years old. Hawthorne comes from a long line of Puritan ancestors, one of participated in the Salem Witch Trials as one of the three judges. To distinguish himself from his family tree , Hawthorne added a “w” to the then “Hathorne.” Hawthorne was encouraged to attend Bowdoin College in 1821. While there, he met poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, future U.S Navy…

she always thought she knew more about others and thought they were all acting different. At the end of the story it was revealed that Miss Strangeworth would send letters to everybody in the town that she thought had problems she didn’t like. Some people in the town eventually uncovered her identity and as revenge they sent her a letter that said they had destroyed her precious flowers that had been with her family for years; her punishment in the end did fit the crime because of all the drama…

phone. Obstacles make a person stronger and provide them with the wisdom they need to triumph. In ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’, Huck Finn is a motherless child and is trying to escape his drunk and abusive father, Hester Prynne in ‘The Scarlet Letter’ commits a sin so seemingly horrifying that she can now only live a life of public shame and loneliness, and Anthem’s Equality 7-2521 has a burning curiosity to know more than what is given to him which almost gets him killed. Throughout these…

Voltaire and his works came after Molière and his works. Like Molière, Voltaire criticized the church, but rather through hidden messages in plays and books, he explicitly attacked the church and the government of France in his books, and is one of the people who is credited for kicking off the French Revolution. Voltaire’s most famous work is his satire Candide, which like Molière’s Tartuffe, was widely banned because it made fun of religion and the government. While both Molière and Voltaire…

Nathaniel Hawthorne depicted the Puritan life in a New England town throughout the novel The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne not just presented an observation but also criticism of the Puritan belief system. The novel was set during the 17th century and was historically accurate with the migration of Europeans to what eventually became the town of New England. The puritans came to the United States for religious freedom. They had strict beliefs in regards to society, religion and how the family…

If you believe in God, you must also believe in the devil. Just as God speaks through his prophets and disciples, the devil can possess and influence those born out of the darkest sins. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, there is more than enough sin to go around. Pearl, born out of the adultery of her mother Hester Prynne, personifies the sin of the novel, and is described as such. Hawthorne uses abstract descriptions, demonic imagery, and wild, animalistic diction to convey his…

The Scarlet Letter expands the division between what is publicly acceptable and one’s personal thoughts and feelings. Hawthorne uses themes of sin, guilt, punishment evoke the reader’s morals and emotions. Often subsequently after sin, guilt is a familiar counterpart. Guilt by definition is the fact of having committed a specified or implied offense or crime. Societies’ morals, affiliate sin with and aftereffect of punishment, this punishment is to teach and reinforces that the behavior is wrong…

“Young Goodman Brown” is a story written by Nathaniel Hawthorn. Some critics see the story as an interpretation embodying Hawthorne’s beliefs about man’s depravity. The most interesting thing about this story is the diversity in people’s interpretations of the image the author is trying to compose. There are many knowledgeable reviews and articles written by scholars, but one in particular stood out to me. In Paul J. Hurley’s article, “Young Goodman Brown’s Heart of Darkness,” the author gives…

The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter revolves around the meaning of Hester Prynne’s punishment for her sin of adultery in a Puritan society, which was to wear the scarlet letter. In the first chapter of The Scarlet Letter, the reader is introduced to Hester Prynne and her daughter Pearl. Pearl is the product of Hester’s sin of adultery. The father of Hester’s child is the well-known and extremely loved priest of their town, Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale refused…