English Essays

Scarlet letter townspeople
Scarlet letter townspeople The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, contains many profound characters. The townspeople intrigue the reader because they gradually evolve throughout the book, as would any solitary character. In the beginning of the novel, they are generally rigid and judgmental towards Hester, because she has committed adultery. Throughout the novel, they slowly allow Hester and her daughter into their community, but still look at them with suspicion and doubt. ...

Scarlet letter, sin in
Scarlet letter, sin in It is often taught that the worst part of sin is not the sin itself but rather the effects of that sin on not only the sinner but also all the people around the sinner. That is why the important lesson in The Scarlet Letter is not about the sin committed by Hester Prynne and the Reverend Master Dimmesdale but more importantly about the way the sin effects, not just Hester Prynne and the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, but other characters as well, for the rest of their li...

Scarlet letter pearl
Scarlet letter- pearl Scarlet Letter- Pearl 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 empathe...

Scarlet letter bewilderment at
Scarlet letter:bewilderment at Jane Manwelyan Bewilderment at the Hands of Sin "No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally becoming bewildered as to which may be true. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, this quote applies to the two main characters of the novel. It applies to Arthur Dimmesdale in a literal way; he clearly is not the man that he appears to be, and the guilt that goes along with such deception...

Scarlet letter the sides of a
Scarlet letter-the sides of a The Sides of the Characters of the Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the book in the times of the puritans in the 1600’s. The Characters of the book include Hester Prynne, Pearl, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingsworth. The first person I will talk about is Roger Chillingsworth, who is nice to the townspeople, Hester and Pearl. The other side of Chillingsworth shows him as an evil person, associated with the Devil. Here is a quote ...

Scarlet letter essay +
Scarlet letter essay + Throughout life we all will be faced with hypocrites or have the choice to be true to ourselves or to deceive ourselves. Especially as a Christian you may wonder if people look at you as a hypocrite and should also strive to not be one. Of course, the most important part is to be true to yourself because only then may you be true to God and to others. Nathaniel Hawthorne also shows this in The Scarlet Letter through the characters he portrays. In chapter 20, Hawtho...

Scarlet letter essay
Scarlet letter essay - The Scarlet Letter It is six in the morning at an Arizona prison. A prisoner named Jonas has been awoken by the prison bell, which sounds more like a horn, and signals that it is time for the prisoners to awake. Jonas quickly gets up, makes his bed and then stands at the door of his cell awaiting a prison guard who will be doing the daily check of his cell. While waiting for the guard, Jonas thinks to himself about what his day will be like, but he soon realiz...

Scarlet letter essay
Scarlet letter essay Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is considered the best of his writings. It may also be the most strongest statement of his recurrent themes, an excellent example of his craftsmanship. Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter during emancipation of women liberation. Therefore, many of his thoughts and ideas about what was happening around him was very influential in his literature. The main thematic emphasis in The Scarlet Letter is on sin and its effects upon both...

Scarlet letter nathaniel hawth
Scarlet letter nathaniel hawth This is Earnest Sandeen's interpretation of the Scarlet Letter not as a story about sins and sinners, but about the power of love. Sandeen describes the love shared between Hester and Arthur through the hard ship both individuals would gladly sacrifice for one another.And the fact tha you can see the power of love as they come together to fight for their relatioship. Sandeen describes the suffering of humiliation of wearing the Scarlet Letter by the town's...

Scarlet letter punishment quot
Scarlet letter punishment quot Punishment Quote “Only the man who has enough good in him to feel the justice of the penalty can be punished; the other can only be hurt.” This is a very interesting quote, and depending what you make of it, it can be very confusing. To most people this quote might not mean anything, but you must read it and try to understand it. Though this quote can relate to a persons personality, it also might not relate to a person at all. All ...

Scarlet letter reflective mono
Scarlet letter reflective mono In the 1600’s, in a small town in a market place, in a time when religion was the only base of all morals among people, and the government worked on behalf of god. A small town is filled with commotion after a woman has been prosecuted and sentenced with punishment for adultery. Her punishment is to bear a Scarlet letter, an “A” on her bosom, for the rest of her living days. The woman has born a child who she is always seen with, whom is her o...

Scarlet letter scaffold scenes
Scarlet letter scaffold scenes In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, the author uses three scaffold scenes to mark the development of Hester Prynne. The image of Hester atop the scaffolding is a metaphor for her forced solitude; for her banishment from society; and for the futility of her punishment. In the first scene, Hawthorne uses the scaffold to explain how Hester can not believe that the “A” and the baby are real. In the second scaffold scene, Hawthorne tries ...

Scarlet letter 4
Scarlet letter 4 A critic, Edward Wagenknecht explains that the scarlet letter upon Hester's breast in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter "had not done its office." This means that the actions of the magistrates punishing Hester for her sin is like usurping God's power, and the scarlet letter keeps Hester from living a miserable, guilty life such as the one led by Dimmesdale. Hester openly shows her scarlet letter and the sin she commits and as a result, this saves her from much grief...

Scarlet letter 8
Scarlet letter 8 Hawthorne's novel describes the life of an adulteress, Hester Prynne, who is shunned by her judgmental community. She gave birth to her daughter Pearl out of wedlock, while her “partner of iniquity,”(Hawthorne 59) a minister named Arthur Dimmesdale, never revealed his “black secret” of their affair. Although Hester suffered public ridicule, the minister suffered no immediate consequence. However, guilt has a way of killing a person silently. In the...

Scarlet letter and ministers b
Scarlet letter and ministers b In every difference there is also some sort of similarity. This is true with anything on earth. This is also obvious in literature. The novel the Scarlet Letter and the short story “The Ministers Black Veil” are very different, but in every way they’re different they can be shown alike also. One example of this is the writing style of the two stories. They are different. The obvious difference is the Scarlet Letter is a novel but the &...

Scarlet letter chapter summari
Scarlet letter chapter summari Chapter 1: Hester Prynne has committed adultery. Two years ago her husband in Europe sent her on ahead to America while he settled some business affairs. Alone in the small town of Boston, Hester has shocked and angered her neighbors by secretly taking a lover and bringing forth a girl child. The Puritans of Boston are shocked that she has done this thing. They are angry because she will not reveal the name of the father of the child. Although the usual penalt...

Scarlet letter critique
Scarlet letter critique - Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is one of the most well remembered romantic novels in history. Although written in 1850, its influence and literary greatness still force themselves onto English teachers’ syllabuses every year. A strong question brought forth by this action is: “How and why does this novel manage to survive the change in society and taste over the years?” The answer to this is quite simple. It is Hawthorne’s ability t...

Scarlet letter critique
Scarlet letter critique Hester Pyrnne is a Puritan woman that thinks that her husband is dead or lost at sea. She has a love affair with Dimmesdale that no one knows about but themselves. Hester is ridiculed for it because she has a baby resulting from it, however nothing is done to Dimmesdale by his fellow Puritans because no one knows that he took part in the affair and is the baby’s father. The Puritans show their disapproval of Hester by doing a variety of things like spreading ...

Satirizing america the purpose
Satirizing america the purpose Satirizing America: The Purpose of Irony in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn In 1884, Mark Twain published the sequel to his successful novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. With the sequel, Twain took a different approach rather than the comical, boyish tone of Tom Sawyer. He used it as an opportunity to exposes the problems he had seen with society using one of the most powerful methods available to a writer: irony. The technique gave Mark Tw...

Say yes
Say yes In the short story "Say Yes" by Tobias Wolff, the couple is able to keep romance in their marriage as shown through their routine arguments, the symbols in the story, and the end result of making up. They spice up their marriage through routine arguments, with the expectation of romance later on. When they first start the night's arguments, the husband notices a "look" in his wife's eyes that tells him, through experience, "he should keep his mouth shut"(444). The husband never ...

Scarlet Letter Reality vs Per
Scarlet Letter: Reality vs Per Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, a dark tale of sin and redemption, centers around the small Puritan community of Boston during the seventeenth century. In the middle of the town market place is a " . . .weather darkened scaffold. . . (234)" where sinners are made to face the condemning public. The people standing on the scaffold experience strange phenomena while on the scaffold. Some become braver, some meeker. And whether the people are looking at t...

Scarlet letter (character deve
Scarlet letter (character deve Authors use character development to show how a person can change. Through a descriptive portrayal of a charter and their development they become real to the reader. A well-developed character stirs up emotions in the reader making for a powerful story. A person can change for better or worse and Nathaniel Hawthorne shows this thru the character development of Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter. We can see how Hester begins changi...

Scarlet letter 2
Scarlet letter 2 -- The Minister's Anguish Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is a compelling story which explores the inner emotions of the human mind, spirit, and the heart. Set around the 1640s in a Boston Puritan society, it focuses on the moral issue revolving around the virtue of truth and the evil of secret sin. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a man of profound knowledge of religion and a true devotee of God, commits a crime of passion with the young and married Hester Prynne....

Scarlet letter 2
Scarlet letter 2 Similarities in the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne The Ambitious Guest is a short story bye Nathaniel Hawthorne that presents deadly irony. Residing in a notch in the mountains of New Hampshire, a cottage sits on the side of a steep mountain. In the house lives a family whose contacts with the rest of the world are from the travelers that pass by. One night when the family was huddled by the fire, a traveler stopped by. The family was happy to have a guest and the guest...

Scarlet letter 4 =
Scarlet letter 4 = In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Pearl serves as the “apple of Eden”. She is plucked from the hands of God in heaven and sent to the mortal world as a baby “to make out its [the scarlet letter’s] hidden import” (155), causing Prynne and Dimmesdale to face their consequences. Pearl functions in the story on three levels: as a real child, as a continuing symbol of Prynne and Dimmesdale’s adultery, and as an allegorical figure ...