Puritan’s harsh beliefs represented the beginning of the Nineteenth Century in the newly colonized America. Their community ruled with an iron fist: unforgiving, pitiless, stern. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne expresses his disagreement with puritan priorities by revealing the hypocrisy widely practiced throughout their community. Hawthorne’s utilization of dim diction aids in the establishment of his scornful tone, while inclusion of symbols and intricate juxtaposition all serve to accentuate the Puritan’s duplicity. All these factors combine to develop a critical tone which rebukes puritan society.
Malleable Puritan thought laid the foundation for arguably the greatest civilization in history, The United States of America. Authors Perry Miller and Edmund Morgan chronicle Puritan history and describe how the Puritans left the Old World and began to transform the New World, and themselves, based off of experiences in their respective writings. Miller and Morgan use the word “experience” very differently when describing our Puritan forefathers, but they draw upon similar conclusions. Puritan thought was constantly transforming through physical, intellectual, and spiritual experiences.
This newly evolved society was cause by the “Religious movement known as ‘Puritanism,’ which arose in England late in the sixteenth century” (Foner 64). Puritans did not refer to themselves as puritans but instead “‘godly’ or ‘true protestants’” (Foner 64). They started this movement because they felt that the protestant reformation was not doing enough and were simply not satisfied. It is commonly believed that Puritanism was “An important thread in the development of American civilization” (Int 25).
In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the townsfolk of Salem, Massachusetts are used to illustrate the religious beliefs and morals derived from the heavily practiced Puritanism. Puritanism centralizes on the belief that God and His worshippers have formed a sacred covenant, therefore, Puritans must always serve God justly to ensure His protection. Authors throughout history have inscribed various accounts of Puritans upholding their covenants with God, which include: encouraging separation between the rich and the poor, establishing dominance over easy targets, and exiling or correcting sinners. John Winthrop delves celebrates into the accepted inequality between Puritans in A Model Of Christian Clarity, William Bradford considers the Native Americans solely as instruments of God in The History of Plymouth Plantation, and witchcraft accusations fly Cotton Mather’s description of the want to remove the devil from New England inin Cotton Mather’s The Wonders of the Invisible World.
The Puritan’s goal of coming to the New World was not to create a new life, but to create the ideal model of living for the “corrupt” inhabitants of England. This was coined “The Errand”, the Puritans desire to establish a City Upon a Hill that others could look up to and imitate in order to receive God’s grace. The Puritans failed at building their City Upon a Hill (creating a perfect religious, economic, and political community), however the long-term effects of their efforts have influenced American moral politics throughout its history. The Puritans forever had the attitude of a community that had successfully established a City Upon a Hill. The Puritan lifestyle was heavily influenced not only by religion, but also inside of that, morality.
The exploration of societal pressures. Life can be separated into two equal parts totally independent from one another. The inner self, being the innermost thoughts and feelings of the individual, and the outer self, how the individual decides to conduct itself around the others in society. Often times one of these parts takes control of the other, suppressing its partner. The suppression is often not of equal frequency because of the obligation humans feel to be liked and to fit in causes the outermost self to be given the most thought and worry.
Throughout America’s history there has been a clear struggle between the beliefs of the individual versus those of society. The literary works of Arthur Miller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and John Winthrop all explore the importance of conformity in America. The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, traces the consequences of hysteria invading a community in the form of witch accusations in the village of Salem. In The Minister’s Black Veil, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the reader sees how the minister’s black veil results in the society’s isolation of him. Finally, A Model of Christian Charity, a speech by John Winthrop, champions religion playing the central role in a community.
Literary Devices in The Scarlet Letter Literary devices are often used to capture a reader’s attention in a text. Nathaniel Hawthorne used many different types of literary devices in his book The Scarlet Letter. He uses symbolism to give hidden meaning to elements in the story, conflict to make the story interesting, and allusion to make references to historical events (ex. biblical references). While reading The Scarlet Letter, the literary devices did not jump out at me, but now as I reflect upon them they help me understand the book well. Literary devices can make a passage have a whole different meaning.
What is Greek mythology? Greek mythology is the body of myths and teachings that belong to the ancient greeks. These myths and teachings include stories of their gods, goddesses, and heroes. They were also used to explain the nature of the world and their origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. These stories were important to the Greeks, because the people of Greece learned good and bad behavior through the gods and goddesses actions.
Eternal life is defined as a resurrection of one’s soul. In Ancient Egypt, eternity after death was believed and hoped for by every Egyptian. Many thought life would continue after death and that death is just a temporary pause in one’s life. Death was also accepted as the beginning of a journey to endurance. The Egyptians’ burial practices were considered necessary to receive their bliss.
The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, functions as an evaluation of Puritan ideas, customs, and culture during the 17th century. Through this evaluation, we can get a good idea of what core values and beliefs the Puritans possessed, as well as the actions they take in cases of adversity brought about by “sinners”. Some Puritan virtues created stark divisions between groups of people, some of which led to discrimination under certain circumstances. One of the most prominent of these is the treatment and standards of men and women, a concept that surfaced during some of the major points in The Scarlet Letter. The divisions that were created by Puritan standards of men and women played a great role in shaping the plot of The Scarlet Letter, determining the fate of many of the characters.
Amanda Vicente The Scarlet Letter Reading Response AP English Language Period J 16 August 2016 Journal Entry 1: Chapters 1-2 In The Scarlet Letter, the author sets a mood from the beginning of the book. The setting is old and beat up in front of an aged wooden prison with judgmental Puritans ready to tear a women apart. The Puritans are hypocrites and the author portrays that in the story.
Hawthorne first portrays Puritans as people who are remembered to be intolerant. In the Custom-House Introduction, the narrator described his ancestors as the perfect examples of a Puritan. Quakers, who held a different belief than Puritans, were heavily persecuted by one of the narrator’s ancestors, who the Quakers remembered as having “hard severity towards a woman of their sect” (Custom-House, 12). However, the narrator also notes on how his ancestors contained both the good and evil traits of Puritans, signifying that Hawthorne did not believe that Puritans were completely evil.
Due to Hawthorne’s ability to play with emotion, once reading The Scarlet Letter in its entirety, readers are unsure what to feel. It is difficult to explain the tone and mood of the novel mostly because that it makes readers become connected with all their different kinds of emotions. It is possible for readers to react to certain situations in their own ways, but for the most part, readers to undergo a rollercoaster of feeling. In having scenes of suffering, anger, rejoice, romance, and relief all confined into a relatively small paperback book, the tone tends to change quite constantly. Though there are individualized moods depending on what is occurring in the novel, there is an overlying tone of hope.
In the “Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays hypocrisy of the Puritan society, where the protagonist Hester Prynne face many consequences of her actions and the how she tries to redeem herself to the society. During the seventeenth puritans believe that it is their mission to punish the ones who do not follow God’s word and it is their job to stop those from sinning. Therefore, the hypercritical puritan society punishes Hester harshly for committing adultery, but in Hester’s mind, she believes that what she did was not a sin but acts of love for her man. Eventually, she redeems herself by turning her crime into an advantage to help those in need, yet the Puritan society still view her as a “naughty bagger.” (Hawthorne 78)
