Critical Essays The Puritan Setting of The Scarlet Letter. The Scarlet Letter shows his attitude toward these Puritans of Boston in his portrayal of characters, his plot, and the themes of his story. The early Puritans who first came to America in founded a precarious colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts. While half the colonists died Essays Historical Context Essay Literary Context Essay Central Idea Essay This passage comes from the introductory section of The Scarlet Letter, in which the narrator details how he decided to write his version of Hester Prynne’s story. Part of his interest in the story is personal—he is descended from the original Puritan settlers of Nov 24, · Research paper related to management information system paragraph structure for essays, what type of student are you essay. Essay about plan in life Grishm ritu essay in hindi ethics in business essay, essay topics on the scarlet letter. An example of a good introduction research paper essay on my city delhi for class 2
The Scarlet Letter: Study Guide | SparkNotes
A large crowd of Puritans stands outside of the prison, waiting for the door to open. The prison is described as a, "wooden jail already marked with weather-stains and other indications essays on the scarlet letter age which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front.
Outside the building, essays on the scarlet letter, next to the door, a rosebush stands in full bloom. The narrator remarks that it is possible that "this rosebush had sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Ann Hutchinson, as she entered the prison door. This opening chapter of the main narrative introduces several of the images and themes within the story to follow. These images will recur in several settings and serve as metaphors for the underlying conflict.
In the manner that Hawthorne describes it, the prison embodies the unyielding severity of puritan law: old, rusted, yet strong with an "iron-clamped oaken door. But despite the evolution of society, the laws have not kept up. As a result, the door remains tightly shut and iron-clamped. It seems it will take a superhuman force to somehow weaken the mores that control the society in which our story will take place.
With the reference to Ann actually Anne Hutchinson, the prison also serves as essays on the scarlet letter metaphor for the authority of the regime, which will not tolerate deviance from a prescribed set of standards, values, and morals.
Hutchinson was a religious but freewheeling woman who disagreed with Puritanical teachings, essays on the scarlet letter, and as a result she was imprisoned in Boston and then banished, essays on the scarlet letter. She eventually was a founder of antinomian Rhode Island. Hawthorne claims that it is possible that the beautiful rosebush growing directly at the prison door sprang from her footsteps. This implies that Puritanical authoritarianism may be so rigid that it obliterates both freedom and beauty.
The rosebush itself is an obvious symbol of passion and the wilderness, and it makes its most famous reappearance later when Pearl announces that she was made not by a father and mother, or by God, but rather was plucked from the rosebush.
Roses appear several times in the course of the story, always symbolizing Hester's inability to control her passion and tame it so that she can assimilate to Puritan society, essays on the scarlet letter. Pearl too is marked by this wildness. Hawthorne cleverly links the rosebush to the wilderness surrounding Boston, commenting that the bush may be a remnant of the former forest which covered the area. This is important, because it is only in the forest wilderness where the Puritans' laws fail to have any force.
This is where Dimmesdale can find freedom to confess in the dark, and it is where he and Hester can meet away from the eyes of those who would judge them. But the rosebush is close enough to the town center to suggest that essays on the scarlet letter passionate wilderness, in the form of Hester Prynnehas been creeping into Boston. That the rosebush is in full bloom, meanwhile, suggests that Hester is at the peak of her passion, referring to the fact that she has given birth as a result of her adulterous affair.
Essays on the scarlet letter crowd in front of the jail is a mixture of men and women, all maintaining severe looks of disapproval. Several of the women begin to discuss Hester Prynne, and they soon vow that Hester would not have received such a light sentence for her crime if they had been the judges.
One woman, the ugliest of the group, goes so far as to advocate death for Hester. Hester emerges from the prison with elegance and a ladylike air to her movements. She clutches her three month old daughter, Pearl. She has sown a large scarlet A over her breast, using her finest skill to make the badge of shame appear to be a decoration, essays on the scarlet letter.
Essays on the scarlet letter of the women are outraged when they see how she has chosen to display the letter, and they want to rip it off. Hester is led through the crowd to the scaffold of the pillory.
She ascends the stairs and stands, now fully revealed to the crowd, in her position of shame and punishment for the next few hours. Hawthorne compares her beauty and elegance while on the scaffold to an image of Madonna and Child, or Divine Maternity. The ordeal is strenuous and difficult for Hester.
She tries to make the images in front of her vanish by thinking about her past. Hester was born in England and grew up there. She later met a scholar who was slightly deformed, having a left shoulder higher than his right. Her husband, later revealed to be Roger Chillingworthfirst took her to Amsterdam and then sent her to America to await his arrival.
Hester looks essays on the scarlet letter over the crowd and realizes for the first time that her life condemns her to be alone. She looks at her daughter and then fingers the scarlet letter that will remain a part of her from now on.
At the thought of her future, she squeezes her daughter so hard that the child cries out in pain. Here we are introduced to the scarlet A which has become eponymous with the novel itself.
Its introduction carries a touch of humor or, at least, resistance: Hester has appropriated the supposed symbol of shame as a beautifully embroidered letter, which she wears without the slightest air of anguish or despair. Indeed, the fine stitch work around the A has reduced it to an ornament, a decorative and trivial accessory. The community's reaction to Hester, as they watch her on the scaffold, not only gives us a sense of how unfavorably they view the crime, but also suggests that there might be a possibility for a groundswell of change.
Most of the people watching Hester's punishment believe that it is far too lenient. Some say they would like to rip the letter right off her chest; others decry the failure of lawmakers to put Hester to death. Yet, there are a few who believe it is more than enough: as one bystander remarks, she feels every stitch in her chest. This scene is the first of three scaffold scenes in the novel. In this scene Hester is forced to suffer alone, facing first her past and then her present essays on the scarlet letter future.
The scene at once reveals Hester's past without presenting us the details of her crime, and it ends with the revelations of the consequence of this past: "These essays on the scarlet letter her realities—all else had vanished. On the edge of the crowd, Hester notices an Indian accompanied by a white man.
She recognizes the white man as Roger Chillingworth, her husband, who sent her to America and remained in Amsterdam. Hester fearfully clutches Pearl harder, essays on the scarlet letter, which again causes her child to cry out in pain. Roger Chillingworth asks essays on the scarlet letter bystander who Hester is and what her crime was.
The man informs him of her past, telling that she was sent to Boston to await her essays on the scarlet letter, but she ended up with a child instead.
Chillingworth remarks that the man who was her partner in the crime of adultery will eventually become known, essays on the scarlet letter. The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale is exhorted to make Hester tell the gathered crowd who the father is, essays on the scarlet letter.
She refuses and instead tells him that she will bear both his shame and her own. Dimmesdale cries out, "She will not speak! Wilson steps forward and delivers a sermon against sin, after which Hester is allowed to return to the prison.
Roger Chillingworth is introduced here as Hester's husband, but because the story began in medias res starting in the middle of the actionwe did not see whatever early affection there might have been between Hester and Roger.
Now, we cannot seem to find the slightest bit of emotion connecting them. Indeed, when Chillingworth appears while Hester is on the scaffold, she seems paralyzed by fear at first. And when Chillingworth demands aloud, "Speak woman, speak essays on the scarlet letter give your child a father!
We are still putting the pieces of the puzzle together at this point, and we are not sure what Chillingworth's relationship to Hester reayly is—does he want her dead?
Does he want the child for himself? Does he know who the adulterer is? Our first priority, as readers, is to determine whether Chillingworth is still in love with Hester. For her part, it seems plain enough that Hester has no carnal feelings remaining for her own husband.
She responds by telling him that she will bear both his and her shame, and that her child will never know her earthly father, essays on the scarlet letter. Dimmesdale then publicly admits defeat and ceases trying to make Hester tell him the name, leaving the crowd unsettled and leaving Chillingworth with a sordid mission. Later in the novel, once we learn all the secrets that Hester is carrying, we look back at this scene with fond amusement, realizing that all of our main characters are holding back the truth with facades.
Dimmesdale places his hand over his heart in this scene. This gesture will reappear and grow in significance during the novel. In this chapter it is meant to show his distress in failing to confess his own part of the adulterous affair, essays on the scarlet letter.
At the same time, the gesture of the hand over the heart is the same one that Hester makes when she remembers the scarlet letter. Hawthorne brilliantly connects Hester's openly displayed shame with Dimmesdale's secret shame by having both characters touch the spot where the scarlet letter is displayed.
The Indian standing at the edge of the crowd introduces the division between the stark Puritanical world and the wilderness beyond. Inside the city of Boston, the laws are upheld and morals are kept intact. But in the forest the laws no longer hold, and the Indian represents the savage and wild nature of the area outside of Boston.
The Indian also foreshadows the dilemma facing Hester, who must find a way to simultaneously live with her immorality and coexist with the moral utopia within Boston. After Hester returns to her prison cell, essays on the scarlet letter, she remains agitated by the day's events.
Pearl is also upset and starts crying. The jailer therefore allows a physician to enter and try to calm them down. Roger Chillingworth, pretending to be a physician, enters and mixes a potion for Pearl, who soon falls asleep. He also makes a drink for Hester, who is afraid that he is trying to kill her.
Nevertheless, she drinks his potion and sits down on the bed. Chillingworth tells her that he forgives her, and he accepts the blame for having married her.
I felt no love, nor feigned any. Chillingworth then laughs and says, "He bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost; but I shall read it on his heart. He then makes Hester swear to never reveal that he is her husband. She becomes afraid of Chillingworth's purpose, and she asks whether he has forced her into a bond that will ruin her soul.
He smiles and tells her, "Not thy soul No, not thine! This chapter marks the second interrogation of Hester, and it foreshadows key moments of the novel.
The Scarlet Letter - Context - Nathaniel Hawthorne
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Critical Essays The Puritan Setting of The Scarlet Letter. The Scarlet Letter shows his attitude toward these Puritans of Boston in his portrayal of characters, his plot, and the themes of his story. The early Puritans who first came to America in founded a precarious colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts. While half the colonists died Essays Historical Context Essay Literary Context Essay Central Idea Essay This passage comes from the introductory section of The Scarlet Letter, in which the narrator details how he decided to write his version of Hester Prynne’s story. Part of his interest in the story is personal—he is descended from the original Puritan settlers of Constitution day essay contest essays on drug use in sports free online research papers computer science sample essays comparison and contrast dissertation student loan Scarlet statements letter thesis. Entry level police officer resume objective examples, the damned human race essay, how people change essay by allen wheelis
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