The entity of Nature acts as a double-edged sword in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In the novel, Nature shows its ability to both harm and heal through its effects on the characters. The novel highlights Nature's complexity by showing that the Puritan idea of...
In Nathaniel Hawthorn’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale have committed adultery, an unacceptable sin during the Puritan times. As a result of their sin, a child is born, whom the mother names Pearl. Out of her own free will, Hester has to...
The literature of the American Renaissance is rich in symbolism, and in no author’s work is this more evident than in that of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Perhaps the most popular of his works, The Scarlet Letter has long been dissected and analyzed by scholars and critics;...
Gender expectations have been rooted in society for generations, creating an image of what the female identity should look like. In the 1800s, women in literature were often depicted solely as domestic caretakers; their sole purpose was to care for their children and husbands. Nathaniel...
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s dramatic novel, The Scarlet Letter, exposes the hypocrisy of a seventeenth-century Puritan society through the lives of two sinners, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne. Both have committed a sin that ultimately strengthens them. Although Dimmesdale conceals his sin from public scrutiny during...
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Blithedale Romance is an extremely enigmatic text. Due to its highly complicated and confusing plot, as well as its somewhat unreliable narrative, it is difficult–and some theorists would say impossible–to determine its final, definitive meaning. In order to create a definitive...
By the middle of the nineteenth century, the young American establishment appeared to have surmounted the instability of its formative stages. The citizens of what had originated as a disorganized and inefficient alliance of thirteen diverse territories succeeded in cultivating a nationalistic pride in the...
The Extremes of Ambition Throughout the ages, men have proven to be submissive under the infamous power of their desires. Men like the main characters in the gothic short stories, “The Oval Portrait” by Edgar Allen Poe and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, sacrifice irreplaceable...
From Genesis, the true nature of humanity has been closely associated with sin. While the Puritans vehemently believed that sin degraded both God and human beings, in the Scarlet Letter, it is the very nature of transgression and the resulting scorn which bestows extraordinary powers...
There is no doubt that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a novel on morals. The way society judges Hester Prynne and the actions of Arthur Dimmesdale, speaks to Hawthorne’s views of Puritanism and religion as well as the treatment of women. However, there is...
In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne establishes a duality between piety and sin that manifests itself in the character of Arthur Dimmesdale. Throughout the plot, Dimmesdale is presented as a faithful and religious minister. Hawthorne primarily portrays this by detailing the power of...
Nathaniel Hawthorne is notorious for portraying characters whose past largely affects who they are and how they act in the future, and The Blithedale Romance is no exception. The interesting thing about The Blithedale Romance is that much of the characters’ past is not known...
Beauty, in every form and aspect, is regarded by the general population as the eighth deadly sin. This becomes strikingly evident throughout the examination of Hester’s plight. Hester Prynne, a radiant example of elegance, begins to find reconciliation in the eyes of the public only...
When a person or character makes a mistake or commits an affective act, their life can be altered both negatively and positively. This idea takes an important contribution in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This novel focuses solely on Hester Prynne: as the protagonist...
Nature. It is a word that seems so expansive and all-inclusive. Within a novel, elements of nature and setting often become so expected and mundane that they are easily glossed over in order to get to the “more important” elements of a story-the plot, characters,...
The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a story of Puritan society and the significant impact it had on people’s lives. It takes place in a New England city during the 17th century. The protagonist, Hester Prynne commits adultery with Reverend Arthur...
A few moments before Reverend Dimmsdale professes his sin to the crowd of onlookers, Hester’s hopes of escape are dashed by the knowledge that Roger Chillingworth also booked a passage on the departing ship a ship that she prayed would give her and her beloved...
To be a paradigm of a Gothic novel, The House of Seven Gables needs to include many elements, all which center on the ideas of gloom, horror, and mystery. The action of a Gothic novel takes place in a “run-down, abandoned or occupied, mansion or...
In the first chapter of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, a solitary rosebush stands in front of a gloomy prison to symbolize “some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and...
Beginning in 1927 and running through 1932, the Hawthorne Studies took place at the Western Electric Company’s Chicago Plant, who employed mostly women who assembled telephone equipment. The number one objective of the Hawthorne Studies was to examine how different work conditions affected employee productivity....
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is led to have an affair by her repressed unconscious desires, what Freud calls the id. Similarly, Arthur Dimmesdale struggles with his internal guilt and refuses to confess his sin; he attempts to think rationally and therefore...
Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne are best known for their techniques being very similar to one another. They both specialize in American Gothic Genre, they both specialize in horror and mystery. They both wrote about humanities dark side and the evil within humanity. Gothic...
In the pivotal “Chapter XVI: A Forest Walk” in The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorn uses symbolism and imagery to convey deeper themes. He intentionally makes the gloomy forest the setting of the meeting between Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. The “feebly sportive” (Hawthorne, 296) light...
By the 19th-century, according to Hawthorne and Melville, a man’s home was no longer his castle, but an effete parlor-room, a locus of stripped and castrated masculinity that hampered the development of classically intellectual and original literature in favor of the mawkish and uniform. While...
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter employs dramatic clout within the characters with the light and dark contrast. The “blackness” did not allude to race. The dark colors underline sin and their evil, distraught intentions while the lightness emphasizes innocence and exposure. Hawthorne implies Calvinist...
Living creatures often find themselves at odds with the individuals with whom they associate. In the event of defeat, humans seek revenge on the victor in hopes of satisfying the desire for justice. While this option appeals to one’s wounded pride, several drawbacks accompany acts...
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown,” is an allegory rich in sexual repression. By psychoanalyzing the main character, one can discover that “Goodman Brown” is not simply a battle between good and evil, but also one of a more sexual nature. Made-to-order essay as...
What is the author saying about sin? Nathaniel Hawthorne is saying the guilt from sin can kill but a person have to accept the sins they commit to live freely. Holding their sins in causes them to be weary of people. People all have sins...
In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester and Dimmesdale are entangled in self-delusion because they are both caught up in a false interpretation of their respective sins and in an opaque vision of a better life. Hester is confused by her own interpretation of...
It has almost become an everyday slogan, in light of present events, that behind everything that seems so perfect there is some horrible mistake, or some terrible sin waiting to come back and rear its ugly head. Nathaniel Hawthorne could not have given any better...
“Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living.”
Date
July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864
Activity
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short-story writer who was a master of the allegorical and symbolic tale.
Works
“Doctor Heidegger’s Experiment”, “Fanshawe”, “Mosses from an Old Manse”, “My Kinsman, Major Molineux”, “The Blithedale Romance”, “The Celestial Railroad”, “The House of the Seven Gables”, “The Marble Faun”, “The Scarlet Letter”, “Twice-Told Tales”, “Young Goodman Brown”.
Themes
Much of Hawthorne's work belongs to the sub-genre of Dark Romanticism, distinguished by an emphasis on human fallibility that gives rise to lapses in judgement that allow even good men and women to drift toward sin and self-destruction.
Style
Nathaniel Hawthorne is regarded as one of the greatest fiction writers in American literature. He was a skillful craftsman with an architectonic sense of form, as displayed in the tightly woven structure of his works, and a master of prose style, which he used to clearly reveal his characters’ psychological and moral depths.
Quotes
“A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”
“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
“To do nothing is the way to be nothing.”
