Sophia Hawthorne

Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville are all authors of the 19th Century that demonstrate their interest about man’s quest for knowledge. Each of these authors has written and exposed man’s quest for knowledge through their darkest desires. Proving that searching for knowledge can lead one to their own downfall or failure in their quest. They believed that human actions could be self-destructive. As a result of this, they have conceived the world that is of their own device…

In Salem, Massachusetts 1692, a group of young girls claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several women in the village of witchcraft. These first accusations sparked a several month hysteria over witchcraft in the village, resulting in the accusation of over one hundred and fifty men, women, and children of devil worship. The events in Salem were inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story Young Goodman Brown, published almost two hundred years later. The short story follows…

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne gives readers a taste of what life was like in a society controlled by Puritans. It is a miserable life, as Hawthorne shows readers through the degradation of Hester Prynne, the adulterous protagonist, who has to bear being isolated from society. In the sidelines, there is Reverend Dimmesdale, who is tortured internally by his secret “sin” of having an affair with Prynne. And while all of this is going on, Roger Chillingworth, Prynne’s revenge-ridden…

"On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter A" ( Hawthorne 45). In the book, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is a woman convicted of adultery and who must wear the letter A upon her chest for her sin. The reader may assume that Hester is a coward who refuses to show her face in town after this incident but instead, Hester is a strong leader because of her ability to be honest about her sin…

leading up to his death. In the beginning of Dimmesdale’s sickness, the reverend is seen constantly holding his hand on his chest, which eventually causes Pearl to connect his chest grasping to Hester’s “A” (Hawthorne,…

By stepping back to the macro level, there is always two folds to a situation. The Scarlet Letter, a classic American novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne that was published in 1850, explores this idea of duality. It is a culmination of the experiences of Hawthorne's life, who grew up in a household steadfast to the Puritan predominant beliefs of being sinless, pure and divine; although fallacious, these were the underpinnings of the Puritan society back in the 16th and 17th centuries. In The Scarlet…

There are many components that influence a person’s mind and ideas. Experiences, whether delightful or unpleasant, will always leave a memory and influence one’s life in an abounding number of ways. Authors usually grasp onto a certain writing style, where they tend to write about topics that can relate to their own life influences. Sometimes, an author can write a piece and include multifarious connections to their personal life, having no intent to do so. Ernest Hemingway had a rather…

written by the nephew of Hathorne, who goes by the name of Hawthorne is about a woman who committed adultery, but also has a main point of good vs.evil. Written in the 1800’s by a puritan author and taking place in the New World during the 1600’s. The Scarlet Letter is mainly about a town that revolves around punishment and a woman that who sinned. But it all symbolizes good and evil. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolism of the Wild Rosebush, Pearl, and the…

Recently in class, we have been reading short stories written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. There are many allusions, allegories, and symbols in his work, so we have been focusing on finding those. Two repeating leitmotifs in his work are the devil and evil. These reoccur in many of his pieces, including Minister’s Black Veil, Scarlet Letter, and Young Goodman Brown. After reading both Minister’s Black Veil and Young Goodman Brown, we can see that the devil is a very important reference that is found…

Lewis Carroll was an English logician, mathematician, an ordained minister, a photographer and a writer best known for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. He was born on January 27, 1832, with the birth name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Many people don’t know that the Alice stories were based on a real girl, Alice Liddell. Carroll first met Liddell on a boat trip. She asked him to tell her a story and he did. It was such a good story he wrote it down for her and from there the Adventures in…