The preface to Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter‚ “The Custom House”‚ serves to introduce the society and times in which the story is set; also‚ this essay provides the background story for the finding of the scarlet letter. The Custom House also provides a definition of what a romance is. Excerpts from “The Custom House” essay closely link to The Scarlet Letter’s text. Two notable examples of these parallels can be found in the descriptions given of the townspeople in Salem who live by ancient moral
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A Feminist Perspective on the Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter is an important piece of literature which offers a notable contribution to all literature with it’s strong female main character and themes of misogyny‚ religious mania‚ and forgiveness. The summary by Mary Ellen Snodgrass in The Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature describes and summarizes this perspective. The excerpt speaks on Hester’s strong character and resistance against the patriarchal oppressive religious male stronghold
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Misogyny‚ Conformity‚ and Obsession: A Feminist Criticism of The Scarlet Letter “And do you not know that you are Eve? God’s sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you‚ she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God… Woman‚ you are the gate to hell!” (Tarico). If even Quintus Tertullian‚ the “Founding Father of Latin Christianity” (Tarico)‚ vehemently preached and ingrained the concept of womankind’s inferiority in society‚ how could Puritan
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Many of the major themes of The Scarlet Letter are introduced in the opening scene. Some of these themes were sin‚ nature’s kindness to the condemned and the dreary lifestyle of puritan society. The first chapter has little action but it sets up these major themes. The tone of the whole story was set in this chapter. The opening scene of The Scarlet Letter‚ many major themes were introduced. One of the major themes of The Scarket Letter was sin. Much of Puritan society was based on sin. The first
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EXAMINE THE SCARLET LETTER AS AN OPEN-ENDED NOVEL Hawthorne wrote during the Romantic Period in American literature which lasted from 1830 to 1865. Ralph Waldo Emerson‚ Henry David Thoreau‚ Herman Melville‚ Harriet Beecher Stowe‚ Edgar Allen Poe‚ and Walt Whitman were his literary contemporaries. The Scarlet Letter is considered a piece of American Romantic literature because it is set in a remote past‚ the Puritan era 200 years prior to Hawthorne’s time‚ and because it deals with the interior
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The Scarlet Letter characters struggle to accept their own personal identities. Hester embodies the scarlet letter‚ while Dimmesdale tries to break his stereotypical religious identity. By wearing the scarlet letter‚ Salem publically shames Hester. If she leaves the town‚ then she could remove the A‚ but instead she stays. She could go away with her daughter Pearl and have a completely normal life. She refuses to leave because the letter has become her identity‚ and she uses its power. Some people
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The Scarlet Letter: The Theme of Punishment Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter deals with many themes‚ the most powerful being punishment. In this novel‚ Hester Prynne becomes a highly respected person in a Puritan society by overcoming one of the harshest punishments‚ the scarlet letter. This object on "her bosom"; however‚ does the exact opposite of that which it was meant for. Eventually‚ Hester Prynne inverts all the odds against here due to her
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emotion stemming from joy and laughter was unacceptable. With their strict rules‚ anyone who sinned was persecuted. The Scarlet Letter‚ by Nathaniel Hawthorne‚ illustrates the story of Hester Prynne‚ a young woman condemned by Puritan society. She committed adultery with the minister of the church‚ Arthur Dimmesdale. With the intention to shame her‚ the town requires her to keep a red letter A permanently on her chest. Hester and her daughter‚ Pearl‚ live on the edge of the town‚ near the
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Colleen Callahan 12/2/12 Period 5 A Tale of Three Sinners In the classic novel‚ The Scarlet Letter‚ Hawthorne utilizes the extraordinary power of description and word choice to illustrate the tragically harsh lives and expectations of 19th century Puritans. The story begins with the ostracization of Ms. Hester Prynne‚ and quickly escalates toward a much deeper and darker focus: sin. Sin can be defined as the deliberate disobedience of Puritan morals and man-made law. To sin will always be
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Dialectical journal: Scarlet letter 1."But on one side of the portal… was a wild rose-bush… which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in…” (Chapter 1‚ pg.41) The rose bush in this excerpt at the beginning of the book signifies the one thing that seems to bloom despite the harsh rules and restrictions that the Puritan society bestow upon all who reside there. Much like the rose bush‚ Hester Prynne
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