Drapier's Letters

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter has received a variety of reviews over it's existence. Most of these reviews, criticizing the main character Hester Prynne.One critic, Mark Van Doren’s use of literary devices to great effect to describe Prynne. These include praising diction, an enduring tone, and heroic allusion help him illustrate Hester Prynne as as strong, rugged woman. Van Doren’s use of praising diction helps the reader envision the likes of Hester Prynne, a character who develops…

In the beginning, the idea of imperfection is introduced with Aylmer’s remark about Georgiana’s birthmark and the cruelness of Nature, “It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain” (646). Throughout the entire short story, there is a constant tension between the world that was created, and the parts Aylmer perceives…

Debates over the abolition of sati marked a contested ground in both India and England between 1780 and 1833. Taken by colonial officials to mean the self-immolation of a Hindu woman on her husband's funeral pyre, the or conceal gay identity.Gender, Class and the Sacred in the Dress of Women Religious" examines the way in which nuns' dress is a visible manifestation of conflicts related to role, self, and the conscription of the body by the church. Unfortunately, she provides more rhetoric than…

“A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles” (Christopher Reeve). In the book, The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester, an average woman, overcomes many barriers and therefore becomes the definition of a hero. Hester commits the sin of adultery in a Puritan society, but still keeps a positive attitude toward life. Although Hester sins in the beginning of the novel, her character embodies the qualities of…

Throughout all of American Literature, authors have used different techniques to relay a message to the reader, one way being by depicting how the community’s influence on the protagonist shapes the protagonists’ development. In The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, authors Hawthorne and Miller, respectively, use the social norms in Puritan society to express a common theme by portraying the positive and negative moral changes in characters. In Puritan society, individuals believed they were…

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Birthmark exhibits many examples of Romanticism in numerous ways. In particular, the characters depict the elements of Romanticism extremely well. Two aspects of Romanticism are the importance of imagination and strong emotions. In Birthmark, the wife displays these traits through her actions. The wife comes to imagine a future in which she does not have to have the “hideous” birthmark on her face anymore and submits herself to her husband’s experimentation. Although the…

Alexander Pope once said, “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” (PhraseFinder). An adage many are familiar with, Alexander Pope’s thoughts on forgiveness reveal that everyone makes mistakes. We all sin. And eventually, we seek redemption to find peace. Khaled Hosseini delves deeper into this aspect of human nature in his novel The Kite Runner. A story about two inseparable friends, Amir and Hassan, growing up in pre-revolutionary Kabul, and experiencing a harrowing journey in the midst of…

French Prodigy Blaise Pascal once stated, “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Pascal essentially suggests that psychological suffering will always be humanity's greatest weakness. Mental anguish can exist as a repercussion or as a cause of a circumstance. This pain derives fundamentally from the vulnerability of the human mind. Humans are susceptible internally, a fact that will eventually lead to their demise as it serves to restrain them from…

Beloved and Pearl, the two spirit-like characters of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, share one important theme for the main characters of Sethe and Hester. They are both people that are a consequence of an unfortunate event, that of adultery and premature death, that serve as a sign of a priority that Hester and sethe must take care of. For Beloved, Sethe's priority is to begin to stop denying the past and facing it and for Hester, Pearl serves as reminder…

A comparison of To Kill a Mockingbird & The Chrysalids To Kill a Mockingbird and The Chrysalids are both novels that discuss flaws in human nature. These extend to racism, both past and future, unfair judgement, and justice. Though they take place in different time periods and have different characters with different beliefs, the two novels showcase similar and yet unique interpretations of their central themes: prejudice, conformity and religion. Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is…