Caroline Cory 12/2/12 AP English Scarlet Letter In Nathanial Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, we do not see the characters to be heroes at first glance. In fact, the dark mood set by Hawthorne in the story makes many of the characters seem dark and troubled. However, with further examination of the story we are able to see true heroes emerge. Pearl is an important character in the symbolism of the story. Pearl is a sort of living version of her mother’s scarlet letter.
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and published in 1850, was just what America was needing in his time. He composed a both beautiful and tragic story while still creating a deep symbolic novel that few could forget. He captivated his readers with his allegorical novel, depending on symbolism and characters heavily, in the style of true dark romanticism. The novel deals with many issues that were prominent at the time, such as the importance of society versus nature, human temptation versus society’s influence, and many others. In Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, he focuses on the conflicting views of society and nature in the Puritan society and uses contrast, symbolism, and imagery to convey his beliefs.
Margaret Atwood’s speech “Spotty Handed Villainesses” explores Patriarchy, feminism and “bad” women in literature. She uses wit and humour to disarm the audience and often uses anti-climatic statements to grab the audience’s attention. Margaret Atwood’s speech resonates through time with her critical study of feminism in a social context and the impact that feminism has had on literature. In the speech Atwood explores the moral dichotomy that exists in Women at the time. She shows how women can only be categorised as either an angel or a whore.
As an example two influential short stories will be discussed in depth in order to shed light into the lives of the two authors and their stories. The short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) and Angela Carter (1940–1992) both sideway the same idea; the confinement of women in particular roles and positions in both personal and professional lives, posed on them by patriarchal figures. Toril Moi quotes in her examination of feministic criticism, Sexual/Textual Politics (2002), Elaine Showalter’s idea that “women writers should not be studied as a distinct group on the assumption that they write alike, or even display stylistic resemblances distinctively feminine” (Moi, 2002: 49), which comes across when reading the two stories which are stylistically already very different. It might be so that a feminist reader of both times (there’s some 80 years difference between the two stories) did not only want to see her own experiences mirrored in fiction, but strived to identify with strong, impressive female characters (Moi, 2002: 46), and looked for role-models that would instil positive sense of feminine identity by portraying women as self-actualising strong identities who were not dependent on men (Moi, 2002, 46). The two stories bring out two female characters, very different by position and character; the other a new mother, scared and confused of her own role, and the other a young newly-wed girl, still a child, being fouled by a much older man, mainly as a mark of his authority over women in general.
Essay 2 “Revelations” In literature written by Flannery O’Conner, she uses violence, ridicule and prejudgment in her stories. I believe she does this to “return her characters to reality and to prepare them to accept their moment of grace.” This is proven in her story “Revelation,” where O’Conner uses ridicule and violence to portray her main character, Mrs. Turpin. She goes through a transformation of one person to another through violence in this story. To begin, she is very snotty, close minded, very racial as well as judgmental. But as the story progresses you can tell that she becomes less violent, racial etc…., and more of a well rounded person in general.
Kumail Hasan The story of The Scarlet Letter is about a very abhorrent sin that was conducted by two members of the Puritan Society in Boston, Reverend Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne. Though those characters play a large role in the story, the characters of Hester Prynne and Roger Chillingworth have a history together from the past. The couple is married but yet contains two different personalities that are visible throughout the story. The scarlet letter, the sin, and a variety of factors lead the lives of both the characters and easily display the characters true faces. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to display his attitude toward these two characters.
This tradition was started before the arrival of the British people inside America to set colonies. This tradition is loved by the present generation and writers like Sherman Alexie have started reviving with most brilliant and intuitive tales about life. Writers who belong to Puritanism or Colonial liked to renovate the Puritan church. The dissatisfied and ill-treated puritans migrated from England liked to establish their religion and literature in America. Reason and enlightenment played a dominant role during the period of the age of reason.
“Wherefore not; since all the powers of nature call so earnestly for the confession of sin, that these black weeds have sprung up out of a buried heart, to make manifest an unspoken crime?” This quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, represents the truth upheld by a person, and how it carries with them through eternity. Hawthorne captures the truth of reality and sin in The Scarlet Letter. By using many literary devices, he reveals the truth of the Scarlet Letter and the characters in his novel. Being a novel during the romantic period, Hawthorne makes many symbolic and archetypical references to the power of nature, and the supernatural. Hawthorne uses these archetypes and symbols in addition to light motifs to demonstrate
Symbolism in the Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism in his writing to give subtle hints about the Puritans way of life. He uses symbols such as the scaffold, the scarlet letter, and lightness and darkness. These symbols are all connected to the sin of Hester Prynne. Hawthorne used the symbols to show how Hester and those around her are all affected by her sin. The scarlet letter is one of the main symbols Hawthorne uses in the novel.
The Scarlet Letter In a time where evil was believed to lurk amongst the puritan colonies, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Author of “The Scarlet Letter” discusses religious mind sets and prosecutions of the convicted sinners. The depth and complexities discussed in this historical fiction fulfills William Faulkner’s definition of a writer’s purpose. The writer has a responsibility which through Hester he shows the intensity of her experiences that she endeavored. William Faulkner delivered a classic speech upon receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature. Faulkner’s perspective on a writer’s responsibility should portray “love and honor and pity and pride and sacrifice”.