John Winthrop

What is your impression on how puritan world view is taken up and treated by Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter? The Scarlet Letter is an indictment on the follies of the puritans featuring the rigid values and beliefs of the society. Hawthorne criticizes various aspects of the puritan confraternity through the lives of the characters and the punishsment one is made to undergo because of the sin committed. Hawthorne took the puritan view seriously in the scarlet letter by depicting the gender…

When creating a story, symbolism can be a crucial factor that helps represent ideas and morals that build onto the characters and the work as a whole. Things Fall Apart and The Poisonwood Bible both use a great amount of symbolism to create a picture for the reader and connect ideas throughout the plot. In Things Fall Apart, the harvesting of yams is used as a symbol to represent wealth and fire is also used to describe Okonkwo’s aggressive behavior. The Poisonwood Bible uses a parrot named…

The Scarlet Letter, an overview of the Puritans taken up and treated by Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet letter is a Gothic Romantic novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. The novel is a historical fiction in a historical setting Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony, of the 17th Century depicting a story of a woman named Hester Prynne who gives birth to an illegitimate child and her punishment for her sin. According to the views of Nathaniel Hawthorne on the Puritan society, he portrayed…

The Scarlet Letter is a very well known book written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In The Scarlet Letter two of the main characters, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale become victims of punishment. They both suffer the punishment imposed upon them by others as well as self-imposed punishment. Hester Prynne is the victim of both types of punishment given to her by her community and the punishment she imposes on herself. After Hester is discovered to have committed the act of adultery, she is…

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…

In the Hands of a Coward There are many situations where a person is a coward, cowardliness is a choice Some people overcome the situation and 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…

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.…

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…

A true contemporary of the modern era, Hester Prynne was cast into the 17th century Puritan America in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne as a foreigner of the times. Immediately speculated as an adulteress for bearing a child with no known father in the community, Hester Prynne is expelled from society. Hester, although ridiculed and alienated, emerges as the representative of the new female image. She defies the status quo as a proponent of feminism and individuality, a product of her…

Hester Prynne can also be called steadfast by being loyal to her family and also by doing her penance of her sin, adultery. Hester committed this sin with her secret lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester acknowledged her sin but Dimmesdale didn’t which allowed Hester to get stronger but Dimmesdale to only become weakened by this sin. Hester Prynne’s steadfast is very prominent when she stays loyal to her little daughter, pearl. Pearl is the consequence of the great sin that is causing Hester problems…