... in The Scarlet Letter, I can think of two more major examples where an object was used as a sign or omen. The first is of course the letter, it meant evil, shame, and sin to the townspeople. All it was, was a letter nothing more, nothing less. The second object that people took as a prolific sign was the weeds on a grave. They reasoned that the weeds were there because of the sins of that person, and that the weeds grew ... because flowers could not. People then and now take symbols too deeply and meaningful. People often take events ... ...

• Word Count: 498
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... 260). The scarlet letter also forges a link between the characters. Pearl, for instance, can't see her mother without it; the scarlet letter had become a part of her mother. The scaffold is another important symbol in the novel. It symbolizes Judgment Day and repentance. Hawthorne uses it whenever the plot takes a shift, as a sort of turning point, "each of the scaffold scenes brings together in a moment of moral, emotional, and psychological tension the major characters and forces of the story ... and spiritual, while Chillingworth's alienation is both physical and emotional. Hester is...

• Word Count: 2338
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... are many characters in Puritan societies, that have provided dissent within the community. These people include Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams, and countless others. The major dissent was towards religion, because this was the most forced element of Puritan fellowship. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's Puritan New England, Hester Prynne was the main offender. The Scarlet Letter is an isolated drama of one woman's shame and guilt for her solitary sin. She is ... not done, his manipulation of the points of view of the characters also helps the reader to see that Hester's sin had such an impact on...

• Word Count: 1115
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... in society. Hawthorne's imaginative energy seems to have been called out in full by the continual correspondences that his theme allowed him to make between external events and inner significances. Sin is, without a doubt, one of the major components of human nature. There is a profound similarity in the experience of Hester and Dimmesdale to Adam and Eve. In both cases, sin results in ... expulsion and suffering. However, it also results in knowledge, and specifically the knowledge of what it means to be human. ... to ponder and speculate on human nature, social organization, and larg...

• Word Count: 579
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... England stories also failed. The collection contained the following short stories: My Kinsman, Major Moulineux, Young Goodman Brown, The Maypole of Merry Mount, The Gray Champion, Legends of the Province House, Howe's Masquerade and Lady Elinore's Mantle. All of them allegories and mixture between dream and reality, surrounded by familiar landscapes to the author. Hawthorne's main two novels are The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, and The House of Seven Gables, published the following year. They ... sequence of events, and the syuzhet or the order in which these events are actually p...

• Word Count: 2367
• Approx Pages: 9
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... Veil- is evidence of Hawthorne's disapproval of the Puritan culture, a comparison of Hawthorne's tales prove helpful when a repetitive theme arises. The major theme in every case is the suffering and separation of the protagonist from the Puritan way of life due to the unfair rulings of such a society. Hawthorne critic of the unkindness within the Puritan society is very subtle, but yet very clear. The main events of "The Minister's Black Veil- revolve around the opinions and actions of the Puritan society that ... in his hour of death. "The Minister's Black Veil- is not the only one of...

• Word Count: 1634
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School