In chapter one of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, many rhetorical devices are used. Hawthorne uses this language to create mystery and wonder throughout the book. His writing is precise; obviously to cause readers to feel a certain way. Nathaniel's use of imagery, mood, and symbolism is what makes The Scarlet Letter so interesting to those who read it.
In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses rhetorical devices such as imagery, symbolism, and foreshadowing. Foreshadowing, is used to reveal Pearl’s father to the reader. Hawthorne reveals that Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale is Pearl’s father, through Dimmesdale’s relationships with the other characters as well as his words and deeds. Throughout the novel, it is clear to the reader that Pearl and Dimmesdale have a unique relationship. As Dimmesdale, on behalf of the other ministers, attempts to convince Hester to reveal who Pearl’s father is, he gives a moving speech that impacts all his listeners: “even the poor baby, at Hester’s bosom, was affected by the same influence; for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale,
The hypocrisy of 1600s Puritan society was often disguised behind a facade of moral righteousness. Puritans claimed to use public shaming as a way to better the morals of society and lead people to repent; however, it was highly hypocritical as the Puritans found pure entertainment in the downfall of others and completely neglected sinners rather than educating them. Puritan society thrived off of gossip and rumors, which goes against many biblical morals. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a 19th century transcendentalist, tells the story of how 1600s colonial Puritan society reacts to a woman who commits the sin of adultery in the 1850 The Scarlet Letter. In an excerpt from Chapter 13, the transcendentalist ideals of Nathaniel Hawthorne are reflected through
Making Connections – The Arduousness of Lies Lies are often told spontaneously as the result of troubling events occurring to someone or something and are often used to manipulate segments of these events in order to attempt to alleviate the trouble or punishment given to the causer of the event. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the character Dimmesdale committed a sin and has withheld this secret for the rest of the town, while he watched the other perpetrator of the sin be punished, ridiculed, and isolated by the town of Boston. The pressure and guilt of lies is often too great of a force to withstand, judging by a past life experience, Dimmesdale reviled his secret to alleviate this dreadful feeling of pressure and guilt. At the age
Davine Francis Mrs.Bauman American Literature, Block B 1 December 2015 The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth a Symbol of Evil Good and evil, both coexist in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's novel The Scarlet Letter. Roger Chillingworth is a prime emblem of evil. Chillingworth is the husband of Hester Prynne, but when he’s gone she falls in love with someone else.
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.
In William Shakespeare’s story of Macbeth and Harper Lee’s book To Kill A Mockingbird, children are used as motivators as well as an influencers of the actions and the decisions of the characters in these two stories. Children are seen as someone to inspire and to look up to you, as well as someone to fear and use a tool to manipulate others. Children are protected, and also framed for unspeakable deeds. Children are plotted against to be murdered for what they could be in the future, but they can also save someone from the same fate. Children represent a significant point of motivation for both Macbeth and Atticus Finch, the contrast exists in the course of action each man pursues: the former is compelled to do evil while the latter is compelled to do good.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, almost everything holds a purpose or a deeper, symbolic message. Hawthorne’s affluent use of literary devices are present throughout the entirety of the text, specifically, his ability to create distinct tones intended to illustrate his message. Through the use of these tones, Hawthorne creates a contrast between the corruption of humanity in Puritan society and the honest purity as seen in nature. Hawthorne draws upon ideas from Romanticism, such as nature and children representing the truth. Using this idea in the novel, he shows how the location of the forest is representative of nature which causes characters to be immersed in truth, showing their true selves.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Book, The Scarlet Letter, Hester was required to wear an A, a symbol for her crime of adultery. Back then, this seemed to work in the Puritan society, but is it effective today? Today, we have a symbol for sex offenders. Sex offenders cannot live near children or schools, and they have to register as an offender for the rest of their life. But what about those who confessed to their crime, learn from their mistakes, and never do it again?
Few sensations in the human experience stand as universal as sin. All who ever live on this Earth shall sin; and sin, with its war waging upon embattled humans roaming the earth, its pillaging and plundering the immense spectrum of human emotions, its seeping into every crevasse of the human experience, comes with an immense flurry of guilt, isolation, concealment, punishment, and consequences. With this burden of sin, all people must face this question: What happens when this sin—this horrible plague of blackness and death—overcomes an individual? In his book, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorn delves deep into this very question of what individuals do when guilt and the isolation resulting in the concealment of sins overtakes their soul.
Everyone has one if not two. What makes a "good" parent? Is there a specific type of person that can become a parent? Some may argue that there is a specific type of person, which is partially true. There are certain traits a parent should have, but there is not necessarily a specific type of person who can be a parent.
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.
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.
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)
