Winthrop

What single sin could one woman have possibly committed to have the sun not shine on her? The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was written during the 1840’s in Salem and Concord, Massachusetts. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne uses the symbols of light and dark to depict good and evil among the main characters Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth. The main character was Hester Prynne she had committed adultery which at the time was the worst thing anyone could do. Which…

The Puritan colonies in America were characterized by rigid standards in both the church and state. They had to be harsh and possess perseverance in order to survive in the New World. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter has preserved in literature a certain perspective as to the harsh Puritan justice and lives we believed them to have lived out. While Hawthorne includes historical details and settings in his book, he does take liberties in his fictional story of the justice system and…

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is, in effect, just as much as a thematic parable as a novel telling a story. Many themes are entrenched throughout the novel, each surely holding the potential, and significance, to merit discussion. However, the one at focus in this composition is suffering; in particular, it is attempting to answer the question of whether we can say if one single character suffered more than others, and who this individual might be. While the four main characters…

Introduction Nathaniel Hawthorne had deep bonds with his Puritan ancestors and created a story that both highlighted their weaknesses and their strengths. His knowledge of their beliefs and his admiration for their strengths were balanced by his concerns for their rigid and oppressive rules.The Scarlet Letter shows his attitude toward these Puritans of Boston in his portrayal of characters, his plot, and the themes of his story. The early Puritans who first came to America in 1620 founded a…

Biblical Allusions and Symbolisms in the Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter is filled with Biblical allusions and symbolisms that help enhance and deepen the context of the story. Watson found 38 allusions in his A Dictionary of Biblical Allusions in the Scarlet Letter and even “acknowledges the possibility that he may have overlooked some of the novel’s more obscure biblical allusions” (Watson 4). Knowing that the Puritan “interpretation of scriptures was a harsh one” (Puritans) and “emphasized…

Question 1: Arthur Dimmesdale’s guilt controlled the rest of his life throughout his remaining years of life; He would have been unable to escape society and flee to Europe because he had not been ostracized from it, unlike Hester. Dimmesdale is characterized by being cowardly, secretly suffering from his guilt and dying by the hands of Chillingworth. While some may state that Dimmesdale was a strong character because he was able to carry his guilt for seven years, he is a very weak, cowardly…

The past of America is portrayed in both The Devil in the Shape of a Woman by Carol F. Karlsen and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, giving us a better perspective into our past. Puritan New England sets the stage for the two novels because the society is what shapes the characters and the events of both novels. Both novels show relations with Puritan society, sin, and women 's sexuality. However, the portrayal of the different sides of Puritan America and the focus of the novels are…

The Scarlet Letter tells the tale of a woman named Hester Prynne, who has an illegitimate child, Pearl, with one of Boston’s well-known ministers, Arthur Dimmesdale. Set in Puritan New England in the 1700s, the environment encircles the Puritan beliefs as well as the Puritan government. Caught by the town when her pregnancy starts to show, Hester is sentenced to prison time and public humiliation for her adultery. As she raises Pearl she encounters her eccentric behavior and wild actions in…

The justification behind the concept of punishment takes many different forms. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the primary rationale behind the Puritans’ punishment of Hester Prynne, the accused adulteress, is retributive, in proportional to the nature of the transgression. The Puritans intend their punishment of ostracism and forced visibility of the letter “A” to match Hester’s crime of adultery by shaming her with a sense of damnation. However, ironically this punishment brings an…

Nonconformity in The Scarlet Letter In the Romantic period, philosophers, artists, and authors emphasized the idea of individualism. They thought that it was better for a person to be unique as opposed to being a conformist to society. Romanticists also encouraged the support of new ideas as opposed to traditional ideas. The author of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, was a Romantic author, and he used these Romantic ideals in his works. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses Hester and…