Sin City

During Lent we are supposed to admit to the sins that we have committed, and ask a priest for forgiveness. Hawthorne wanted to prove that we all sinned, and that we all should admit to them. That was his main purpose in writing “The MInister's Black Veil” and “Young Goodman Brown.” He used Goodman Brown’s journey to convey that everyone, even the religious leaders sin. He used Faith’s ribbon to symbolize that evil and good are both present in everyone. Another…

describes what hell is and that people are worthy of hell if the will of God is not followed properly. Through the use of rhetorical devices such as imagery and strong diction and language, Edwards plan is to persuade all sinners to repent for their sins and ask God for forgiveness. Throughout the sermon he expresses in much detail what Hell and suffering looks and feels like and the ways to avoid hell and have eternal happiness in Heaven. Through imagery, on the eleventh line of the sermon…

The people of Europe responded to the Black Death with three types of fear. They isolated themselves from the sickness, tried to explain the sickness, and/or blamed someone for the plague. Avoiding the sickness seemed to be the most common reaction to the fear of the plague. Giovanni Boccaccio had said in the introduction to The Decameron “almost all of them adopted the same cruel policy, which was entirely avoid the sick and everything belonging to them.” He had said this about those who…

Hawthorne is a short story about a preacher, Mr. Hooper, started wearing a black veil to church and the congregation did not approve of him wearing the veil. Mr. Hooper wore the black veil the first time to a sermon where he preached about a secret sin. The congregation thought that Mr.Hooper might be going to a funeral and that was how he was showing his sympathy for the family. Later that same day Mr.Hooper showed up at a wedding with the veil still on. The people of the town asked Mr.Hooper…

During the Eighteenth century, many people were increasingly blinded from the real object of life and began to depend on unearthly possessions. To avoid people from falling further into the depths of temptation, Jonathan Edwards preaches his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” to provide people the opportunity to realize that their soul’s mercy depends on the saving grace of God. However, in his sermon, Edwards makes it clear that man is still destined to go to hell because of…

and how she relates to sin in The Scarlet Letter In The Scarlet Letter, a novel set in the seventeenth century in a Puritan settlement by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Pearl is a symbol that contributes to the role of sin throughout the entirety of the story. She is more of a symbol that is meant to supplement one of the main themes in the story, sin, rather than an actual character that has unique characteristics. She represents several things like a constant reminder of Hester’s sin, an embodiment of…

David and Bathsheba and the turmoil it caused not only him but his whole kingdom. David was not where he was supposed to be, and it allowed for sin to enter his life. The consequences of this action would be deadly. For as long as I could remember, the story of David and Bathsheba was a very “surface level” Bible story in Sunday School to warn against sin. My little mind thought if I did not listen to Mom tell me to clean up my dishes that I was going to go up in smoke. There is a lot more…

an innocence untainted by temptation. When Goodman Brown thinks he has lost his wife Faith, he also loses his faith in God. One can see the precise moment he gives into the Devil when he says, “My Faith is gone! . . . There is no good on earth, and sin is but a name. Come, Devil! for to thee is this world given” (Hawthorne 347). In addition to symbolism through the use of Faith, the other characters symbolize the surrounding darkness. The characters in the ritual are people Goodman Brown thought…

keeps you from being this moment swallowed up in everlasting destruction” (Edwards para 5). By emphasizing humanity’s insignificance and describing the torments of eternal damnation, Edwards forcefully intimidates the audience into reconciling their sins. Fear motivates people by giving them a simple solution to remedy the discomfort they are experiencing. For this reason, fear is possibly the most powerful and effective motivator to the human mind. Therefore, fear’s function as an influential…

Adultery In the Puritan religion “He that falls into sin is a man; that grieves at it, is a saint; that boasteth of it, is a devil” (Thomas Fuller). Everyone has sinned in their lifetime because we are all born sinners. Although people try their best not to sin, most people fail to resist the will to sin. Sin is a transgression against divine law. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne suffered at the hands of the townsfolk, Roger Chillingworth, and the rule of the…