Nathaniel Hawthorne

If a teacher were to ask a student if Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, should stay in the curriculum, the student might answer with a vexed look and a stern ‘no’. Some readers would express frustration with the antique writing style and the overly intricate plot. Even some people from Hawthorne’s time were distracted and unable to recognize Hawthorne’s actual denotation. E.P. Whipple, a nineteenth century essayist and literary critic, wrote “There is a profound philosophy underlying…

Nathaniel Hawthorne’ s short story, “The Birthmark”, demonstrates a war between the artificiality of science and the spirituality of religion. Hawthorne uses the characters Aylmer and Aminadab as symbols of ideologies and mindsets epitomized in Romanticism. Romanticism, as classified in the “The Birthmark”, is interested in the matters of imagination and artistic expression, straying from the science-driven Enlightenment philosophies that concentrate mainly around reason, logical thinking, and…

defined a hypocrite as: “the man who murdered both his parents… pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.” There has been no shortage of hypocrisy throughout history; and all the same for literature. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is rich with characters harboring this undesirable trait. Characters such as Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale are motivated to act hypocritically by vengeance, fear, penitence, and even hypocrisy itself. Hester Prynne’s…

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne has many symbols, but none of them really stand out as much as the one the book is named after, THE SCARLET LETTER. While The Scarlet Letter has many meanings, the most common known one is that it stands for adultery, the sin that occurred between Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne, how the meaning changes over the course of the book; it also appears as different things such as the meteor, the A pierced into Dimmesdale’s chest, when pearl created a…

depiction, it is what the majority of children grow up thinking a hero looks like. Similarly, a hero, or heroine, is defined as someone who is “admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities”. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, plays with the idea of heroism, making it a subtle, yet effective quality, rather than a career. The novel follows the story of Hester Prynne, a young mother who committed adultery in a Puritan society. She is outcasted by a red…

of Truth Nathaniel Hawthorne is an accredited Dark Romantic writer, and in 1850 he writes one of the most “American” books on the shelf. Although, most claim he is a heavy Dark Romantic influence, in The Scarlet Letter his attractiveness toward the Transcendentalist movement - shine - through. The Transcendental movement embodied the spirit of hope and exuded emotion over logic. The fact that The Scarlet Letter is a romance, and not a novel is perhaps the easiest way to see that Hawthorne aimed…

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark” portrays this foolishly driven desire in creating a flawless being by illustrating the battle between a man’s love for science verses his love for women. Hawthorne’s choice of language conveys the barriers that lie between morality and sin that are recognized by challenging nature and scientific triumph. Early in the short story, Georgiana and her birthmark are introduced as “a single mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and…

In “The Birth-Mark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character- Aylmer- attempts to remove his wife’s birth-mark through his scientific experiments. His wife, Georgiana first saw the birth-mark as beautiful, but Aylmer convinced his wife that it was horrid and must be immediately removed. Aylmer and the assistant working in his laboratory attempt to rid Georgiana of her birth-mark. Eventually, Aylmer’s work becomes a success as it rids Georgiana of her birth-mark, but she dies because of the…

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark” follows a husbands desire to have the perfect wife. Following newlyweds, Aylmer and Georgiana, the reader learns of Aylmer’s constant desire to remove a birthmark off his wife’s face. This birthmark draws much attention to Georgiana which Aylmer finds uncomfortable. In striving for perfection, these two characters are willing to risk death. In doing so, the story relies on setting, genre, characterization, symbolism, and foreshadowing to help…

breathtakingly majestic in its own way, yet none is completely perfect. In his short story, “The Birthmark”, Nathaniel Hawthorne states the omnipotence of nature, using the disallowance and impossibility of true perfection within creation. One instance where Hawthorne illustrates the theme of his short story is the pygmy hand shaped blemish “in the centre of Georgiana’s left cheek” (Hawthorne 1). This birthmark is the only flaw on her entire body and Aylmer, “seeing her otherwise so…