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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In The Scarlet Letter‚ Hawthorne uses the lives of Hester‚ Dimmesdale‚ and Chillingworth to emphasize themes of hypocrisy and sin within the Puritan society by stressing the relevance of forgiveness‚ the negative outcome of abandoning righteousness‚ and the austere need for compassion in the Bostonian community . Through Hester‚ Dimmesdale‚ and Chillingworth’s habitation among the Puritans‚ Hawthorne reveals to readers the need for clemency through the demonstration of themes about hypocrisy. First
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In the novel‚ The Scarlet Letter‚ by Nathaniel Hawthorne‚ Hester commits adultery‚ disobeying the Puritan laws‚ and is punished with two constant reminders of her sin‚ the scarlet A and her daughter‚ Pearl. Hawthorne characterizes Pearl with contrasting personalities and roles she plays in Hester’s life. Pearl’s conflicting personality components‚ innocence and defiance‚ both derive from her isolation from society‚ which resulted from her mother’s sin. Pearl represents the conflict between good and
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A Human Form of the Rose Bush Pearl‚ in the Scarlet Letter is in many ways a human form of the rose bush introduced in chapter 1. Just like the rose bush‚ Pearl is wild and free. She does not listen to what others say about her‚ she does not care what other’s opinions are one her. Some people call her the devil’s child because she represents sin‚ but her mother considers her an angel. The rose bush has a representation of sin in the way that it grows outside of the prison and is a reminder of
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Readers Response of ‘Scarlet Letter’ Despite the declination in the personal and societal standards of morality in the past century‚ it is still evident today that a universal standard of ethics does indeed exist in every civilization. Likewise‚ these communities administer consequences upon those who fail to meet up to those principles. The severity of the punishment inflicted rests solely on the offender‚ the offense and the society itself. For Hester Prynne‚ the penalty for fornication
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At the end of chapter one‚ The Prison Door‚ there is a passage which describes a single rose bush next to the prison door. Although the author did give many interpretations of the rosebush’s meaning‚ there was no definite one. I decided to explore different interpretations. These roses would “offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner.” (42) These soft‚ red roses offer a small but bold contrast to the strict‚ black and white world of the puritans. The vibrant flowers give a splash
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The Scarlet Letter Katherine Sanford Reaction Essay Honors English 3 The Scarlet Letter is one of the many novels that is loved by some people but hated by others. I’m somewhere in between. It was extremely different from what I was expecting but it made me so confused at some points that I cant completely say that I loved the storyline. I can say though that it was so much better than I thought‚ which evidently made me like it. This novel caught my attention in the beginning and
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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a great work with many excellent things that could be said about it. One thing that makes The Scarlet Letter stand out is the character of Hester Prynn‚ who is one of the strongest female characters in literature. Having a female character with such strength raises the question of whether or not The Scarlet Letter is a feminist novel; by looking at what feminism is and analyzing the book itself‚ one can see that the book is more a commentary on society
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AP United States History – Chapter 24 Essay 1. In what ways did the railroad construction between 1865 and1890 transform American society and the American economy? 2. In what ways did American industrialists consolidate their businesses and eliminate competition? How was this business consolidation perceived by the public? 3. In what ways did the American government promote the growth of the American economy in post bellum America? To what extent did they regulate business activity? Between
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Transformation The setting of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet letter” is crucial to the understanding of the event that takes place in the story. The setting of the story is in Salem‚ Massachusetts during the Puritan era. During the Puritan era‚ adultery was taken as a very serious sin‚ and this is what Hester and Dimmesdale committ with each other. Because of the sin‚ their lives change‚ Hester has to walk around in public with a Scarlet Letter “A” which stands for adultery‚ and she is constantly
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