Winthrop

The Scarlet Letter is a novel highlighting the sin of a young woman named Hester and the toll it takes on her and those around her. This sin – adultery – was born from passion, and from that passion was born a child named Pearl. Pearl is a living, physical entity of the sin. Hawthorne reveals the character Pearl’s nature in the Scarlet Letter through the text by shaping her personal qualities, her symbolic value, and her function in the plot. Immediately, Pearl becomes locked into a role. Her…

In the novel The Scarlet Letter, an examination of the reaction to sin in Puritan society, Nathaniel Hawthorne, born in Salem, Massachusetts with powerful Puritan ancestors presents significance in the scaffold and the scarlet letter, implication in Hester’s occupation and charitable gestures, and the development of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and Governor Bellingham in order to expose the hypocrisy of Puritanism. The novel is set in seventeenth century Boston, then known as Massachusetts Bay…

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic The Scarlet Letter, there are lots of symbols with multiple meanings. One such object with multiple meanings is the forest. The forest has multiple meanings because it represents evil and danger to some, but to others it is freedom and a happy place. The multiple meanings of the forest shows how Hawthorne feels about many of his characters and even the world around them. Hawthorne feels that people and the world, much like the forest, has many sides and can be…

Similarly to the character’s actions and thoughts, the character’s emotions also exemplify Wise Blood’s theme and the novel’s irony. Hazel Motes, when he enters Taulkinham, has already decided to begin his protest on God. He begins by sleeping with a prostitute named Lenora Watts. He sees her address etched inside a men’s bathroom stall, and immediately after hails a taxi to go to her house (O’Connor 26). Once at her house he sleeps with her for the first time. Ms. Watts refers to herself as…

Dissension and Destruction of Arthur Dimmesdale The obligation or responsibility imposed on a person in whom confidence or authority is placed could be broken by those who are charlatans and ingenuine. These are the type of individuals the reader will encounter in the American classic The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the conflict between outer appearance and inner reality through the internal dissension of the character Arthur Dimmesdale who struggles with day to day life while…

Arthur Dimmesdale is a protagonist in the novel The Scarlet Letter and understood to be guilty of two sins, one of commission (his adultery with Hester Prynne) and of omission (his cowardly and hypocritical failure to confess. The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850 and inspired by his Puritan primogenitors in the 1630s. Because of his knowledge of the Puritans he is able to describe their strengths and portray their weakness as a colony and community. Hawthorne’s The…

Dramatic Irony- irony occurs in a fictional work when the audience / reader or a character knows something that another character does not. The pardoner’s prologue exemplifies dramatic irony within the Pardoner’s preaching regarding evil. ( Chaucer 18, 20, 21,) The pardoner addresses within his sermon the root of all evil is avarice, yet he willingly reveals to the reader his true intent within such declaration was a selfish greed.( Chaucer, 46) Due to his occupation, and previous assertions,…

Prompt: How is the theme of appearance versus reality dealt with differently in A Streetcar Named Desire and Blue Jasmine? “Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.” However simple these words may seem, this is perfectly epitomized by Tennessee William’s theatrical masterpiece, ‘A Streetcar named Desire’ to the modern adaptation ‘Blue Jasmine’ directed by Woody Allen. A streetcar named Desire and Blue Jasmine touch on…

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's story, “The Minister’s Black Veil”, there are several themes, but the most ordinary and prominent is that everyone has secrets and sorrows hidden from others. In the story, the main character, Reverend Hooper, is a minister in a small Puritan community in Milford. The minister is described as wearing two folds of black crape, which entirely conceals his facial features other than his mouth and chin (240). This veil symbolizes many things, but most people assume that…

In the “Minister's Black Veil” Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism to represent secret sin and shows the theme is death. The main character named Mr. Hooper wears a black veil In the story Hooper wears a black veil which symbolizes hiding sin. “But what if the world will not believe that it is the type of an innocent sorrow?” urged Elizabeth. “Beloved and respected as you are, there may be whispers that you hide your face under the consciousness of secret sin. For the sake of your holy office,…