John Winthrop

Decent Essays
Improved Essays
Superior Essays
Great Essays
Brilliant Essays
    Page 5 of 50 - About 500 Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Scarlet Letter tells the tale of a woman named Hester Prynne, who has an illegitimate child, Pearl, with one of Boston’s well-known ministers, Arthur Dimmesdale. Set in Puritan New England in the 1700s, the environment encircles the Puritan beliefs as well as the Puritan government. Caught by the town when her pregnancy starts to show, Hester is sentenced to prison time and public humiliation for her adultery. As she raises Pearl she encounters her eccentric behavior and wild actions in…

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The justification behind the concept of punishment takes many different forms. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the primary rationale behind the Puritans’ punishment of Hester Prynne, the accused adulteress, is retributive, in proportional to the nature of the transgression. The Puritans intend their punishment of ostracism and forced visibility of the letter “A” to match Hester’s crime of adultery by shaming her with a sense of damnation. However, ironically this punishment brings an…

    • 1121 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Nonconformity in The Scarlet Letter In the Romantic period, philosophers, artists, and authors emphasized the idea of individualism. They thought that it was better for a person to be unique as opposed to being a conformist to society. Romanticists also encouraged the support of new ideas as opposed to traditional ideas. The author of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was a Romantic author, and he used these Romantic ideals in his works. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses Hester and…

    • 1349 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne helps the reader understand the actions of the Townspeople through giving an understanding of the time period and the setting. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s piece The Scarlet Letter narrates a story that is based in the New England Colonies during the mid-17th century. During this time the puritans were running from religious prosecution and came to the New World to further reform The Church of England. The Town is a setting in The Scarlet Letter…

    • 1234 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the difficult time many people went through is seen. It is mostly seen how women did not have as many choices as men did, it shows how women were judged and watched for every little thing that they did. Their actions spoke louder than their words, because no one was willing to hear what they had to say, they were just willing to see the outcome. The beliefs that society had, compared to the ones that society has today were very different yet in a…

    • 1707 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Guilt is a menacing monster that lurks in the conscience of one’s mind. It can remain in one’s conscience whether or not the person chooses to be aware of it. If one does not acknowledge their guilt, then the guilt will continue to linger and grow. Thus, when left alone too long, that monster can evolve and completely consume the person’s mind, eating them alive. One novel that most notably explains the consequences of a guilty conscience is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne’s…

    • 1840 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Constructive and Destructive Mentalities Committing transgressions is an often unavoidable tendency of mankind. Yet, Puritan society and law in the New World revolved around the importance of following God’s will and maintaining a reputation free of sin. Consequently, failure to follow the strict laws and norms of daily life most often resulted in severe punishments or public infamy. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter juxtaposes the effects of these ramifications and of hiding sin upon…

    • 1252 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nathaniel Hawthorne in his gothic romance novel, The Scarlet Letter (1850), depicts the life and the hypocrisy of the Puritan communities in the colonial days. In the novel, protagonist Hester Prynne must wear a scarlet A on her bosom to mark the guilt adulterous sin she committed with Arthur Dimmesdale, a Puritan minister, while her thought-to-be long gone husband, Roger Chillingworth, is on the hunt to seek revenge. Hawthorne’s use of dramatic irony builds suspense and tension as he divulges…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In a society of neutral colors, the child dressed all in scarlet and gold appeared to be an alien in a foreign land. As she pranced through the cemetery with her mother, also wearing the colors of scarlet and gold, the daughter stood as a reminder of the adultery that the mother had committed. The daughter, Pearl, and the mother, Hester Prynne, are characters in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, a novel about sin and how people deal with the after effects of sin. Hawthorne uses Hester…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bapsi Sidhwa’s novel tells the story of the violence leading up to the 1947 Partition of India and its aftermaths. The novel focuses on the division of British India into two separate countries, India and Pakistan, and tells the story of this event through the eyes of a young Parsee girl named Lenny. Lenny is just a child at this time, and she must watch in horror as her country falls and a very large religious divide occurs between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs in India. We are able to see the…

    • 1137 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 50