pointing out he beauty and "perfect elegance". He never once pointed out a flaw of…
Capital punishment was wide spread in Puritan Boston. Although the Bible was a moral guide, societies were swarmed with crimes and sins. The punishments included severe whipping, imprisonment, slitting nostrils, and public execution on scaffold(“Puritan”). In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, although the two main characters, Hester and Dimmesdale are guilty of the similar sins, they experience different punishments and outcomes.…
These animals may have different habitats and they might be different animals but they have much more in common than you think. Humans started both of these animal issues, by not thinking about the habitats of these animal. They brought them to place where they didn’t know how to live and so they ended up destroying the environment around them. A good example is the goldfish. Their owners threw the goldfish into ponds and rivers, which was not their natural environment. Since this new environment did not have the things they were used to, they ate up all the native fish in the ponds and rivers. Now the native fish were dying, and the goldfish became huge and took up…
(An analysis of the letter ‘a’ and all the symbolisms behind it from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter.)…
There are many maladies in this world to which the fragile human body can fall victim. Be it from disease or from physical injury, the end result is the same if the ailment is left unattended for too long. However, what happens when this sickness emerges from the darkest corner of the human soul and begins to agonizingly consume the fibers of one’s being day by day? When the parasite is an insatiable guilt which causes sensations so tortuous and vile that they can drive a man to the brink of insanity, and perhaps even into the waiting claws of death? Such horrid feelings, especially when contained, possess an unfathomably immense danger with grave consequences. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, Arthur Dimmesdale’s deteriorating…
The Shame “Shame is nothing more than denial of the truth.” – M. Funkhouser. Everyone agrees that…
One of the most complex and elaborate characters in The Scarlet Letter is Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Pearl, throughout the story, develops into a dynamic individual, as well as an extremely important symbol. Pearl is shunned because of her mother's sin. Pearl is a living representation of the scarlet letter - acting as a constant reminder of Hester's sin.…
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, Pearl undergoes a dramatic transformation from a devilish infant to a sagely child. Born into a society full of judgment and hypocrisy, Pearl, a bastard child, is unable to escape her predetermined role. Pearl lacks a traditional family; her mother is the sole provider, a direct attack on Puritan standards designating this young family as outsiders. Furthermore, Pearl, unlike her peers, establishes a reputation for being strange because she does not adhere to conventional norms. Despite her apparent shortcomings, Pearl is more perceptive and compassionate than members of her community. Predestined by stringent, oppressive Puritan standards, Pearl is outwardly…
It is weird and oddly strange when a description of the devil or also know as “Satan” in Dante’s Inferno, Dante gives the description of Satan as being a frozen three headed hairy being with a tremendous huge width of bat wings .…
“Guilt is through the spirit and Pain is the body.” Everyone is sinful or guilty in a way, whether it is lying or doing adultery. It is mistakes that are caused by people. Because you will have to be guilty first in order to suffer the pain that was caused by their sin. Mr. Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne had to suffer his own sin and can’t find a way to confess to the society, no one understands what is he going through. Hester has to suffer from her own sin with everyone be disgusted by her, wish to not have any relationship with her. This is the same with John Proctor in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. He had to suffer a sin of his own, due to the affair between him and Abigail Williams. Therefore he has to face…
Throughout history, many references have been made to the battle that rages on between good and evil. In the bible we are shown good in the form of God and evil in the form of the devil. In everyday life we are shown examples of good in people such as Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Mother Theresa. But with that said, we are also shown examples of evil as well in people such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Osama Bin Laden. When talking about books and novels, the majority of them feature some type of story depicting good versus evil and The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is no different. Throughout the novel, the reader is engaged in a story that is engulfed in a theme featuring good versus evil. From Hester's…
Pearls have always held a great price to mankind, but no pearl had ever been earned at as high a cost to a person as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s powerful heroine Hester Prynne. Her daughter Pearl, born into a Puritan prison in more ways than one, is an enigmatic character serving entirely as a vehicle for symbolism. From her introduction as an infant on her mother’s scaffold of shame to the stormy zenith of the story, Pearl is an empathetic and improbably intelligent child. Throughout the story she absorbs the hidden emotions of her mother and magnifies them for all to see, and asks questions nothing but a child’s innocence permit her to ask, allowing Hawthorne to weave rich detail into The Scarlet Letter without making the story overly narrative. Pearl is the purest embodiment of literary symbolism. She is at times a vehicle for Hawthorne to express the irrational and translucent qualities of Hester and Dimmesdale’s illicit bond at times, and at others a forceful reminder of her mother’s sin. Pearl Prynne is her mother’s most precious possession and her only reason to live, but also a priceless treasure purchased with her life. Pearl’s strange beauty and deeply enigmatic qualities make her the most powerful symbol some feel Hawthorne ever created.…
In The Scarlet Letter, a novel by author Nathaniel Hawthorne, rugged individualism is a reoccurring theme with certain characters throughout the text. Rugged individualism expresses the idea of someone doing what is believed to be right for themselves despite the consequences that may be placed on the person or the people around this person. In The Scarlet Letter, there are multiple events in which rugged individualism takes place, but the two characters that show the most rugged individualism throughout the novel are the main character Hester Prynne, and Roger Chillingworth.…
Those who have a spiritual background would argue that all sin is equal, and that no sin is greater than any other. However, others would argue that committing adultery is greater than gossiping, or telling a lie. The novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne emphasizes the difference in sins. Although each of the characters commits their own sin, each of them could be argued as the one with the greatest. Through Dimmesdale’s hypocrisy, deception, and adultery, his sin is the greatest.…
In Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, the main character, Willy Loman is a salesman that believes it is not grades you make but the hands you shake and how well you are liked. Willy was at one time a good salesman but now he can’t make enough money to support his family. Willy’s pride causes him to portray himself as a big shot salesman that is well-liked by everyone. Though Willy is not as a successful salesman as he claims, Willy’s tragic flaw of pride contributes to his downfall.…