... anyone, not even his own children, he would scowl when his wife would pray over their children. His life was never the same, he never loved more or less liked anyone. His state of solitude didn't end until the day he died. In "Heart of Darkness," the jungle controls all who enters it. Conrad articulates, "Going up that river was like traveling back to ... the earliest beginning of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings," (35). Marlow offers this insight as he heads ... up the river. This occurs before he encounters the hostile natives and Kurtz ... ...

• Word Count: 934
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... Hawthorne 395). Despite the separation from his parishioners, he continued to wear the veil, which then leads to the separation of Hooper from himself. The second type of separation is separation from happiness. Elizabeth, the fiancé, tried to convince him to take it off for her, but he would due no such thing. The veil was bringing darkness into his heart, thus the start of his separation from ... happiness. "But that piece of crape, to their imagination seemed to hang down before his heart, the symbol of ... a fearful secret between him and them" (Hawthorne 393). Darkness had found i...

• Word Count: 985
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... but submitted uncomplainingly to its worst usage- (127). At first, Hester only has penance because she has yet to be sorry for what she has done. She illustrates this in the making of her scarlet letter, " fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom!" (45). She is very proud and dignified. This pride illustrates that she is not sorry, and not ... not remorseful; he is never able to obtain compunction. Dimmesdale explains the darkness of Chillingworth's sins to Hester: "' We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world. There is one worse than even the polluted priest! ...

• Word Count: 695
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... and guilt as well as growth. The first instance is the symbolism of the rosebush being close to the prison at the beginning of the novel. Hawthorne implies that the roses of the rosebush are there: to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to ... out of Puritan civilization, the forest is the embodiment of a comfortable friend for her. The main purpose of the forest in The Scarlet Letter is to be a place where the truth can exist. Nat...

• Word Count: 1017
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... to consume all that is his very essence, Arthur 3 Dimmesdale illustrates Hawthorne's theme of a sin-stained conscience and redemption only through truth. The novel begins to seek into the heart and conscience of Arthur Dimmesdale when Roger Chillingworth questions him about his thoughts on sinners and their secrets. Feeling full well the distress of his own secret, Arthur proclaims that those who hold such "miserable secrets will ... very important in the development of the novel. 6 "Images of color, and of light and shade are more numerous than any other images in the novel" (Waggoner ...

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

... One night, in order to relieve his guilt, he walks to the scaffold and stands there openly like Hester did. He does this, however, in the pitch-black darkness of the night, so the situation is not exactly the same. As he stands on the scaffold, his fellow minister, Reverend Wilson, coming back from the house of late Governor Winthrop, passes him. He suddenly feels a great temptation ... mean, mother? and why dost thou wear it? and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart?" Hester is surprised by her daughter's ability to connect the scarlet letter to the minister's ailment; i...

• Word Count: 3653
• Approx Pages: 15
• Grade Level: High School

... by God. This shows that the immense guilt within Dimmesdale has an effect on how he portrays things. The meteor also allows the group on the scaffold to be spotted by Roger Chillingworth. The meteor in the dark sky enlightens Roger Chillingworth to the point at which his, "Smile and scowl So vivid was the expression that it seemed to remain painted on the darkness, after the meteor had vanished, with ... an effect as if the street and all things else were at ... where, seven years since, I should have stood." (220). Dimmesdale said this to finally confess his sin to the world. His sin ...

• Word Count: 1995
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... "a name for the world out of which man emerges into conscious life, the world of the unconscious as we have a habit of calling it today- (Goddard 40). In MND, Shakespeare takes us on a light-hearted jaunt, mainly through one character named Nick Bottom, into his own heart. In contrast, Hawthorne invites us to walk alone with him, in the personae of the main character named ... Young Goodman Brown, on a tour of his own soul where we are all disturbed by what he finds. Each of these characters experiences a personal transformation with two different endings. Both stories ... even in the ...

• Word Count: 507
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... evil itself" (Adams 165). At Brown's confrontation with the devil, the devil says to him that he is late. Goodman excuses his lateness by replying, "Faith kept me back awhile" (Hawthorne 261). This passage shows literally and figuratively, Brown left his unquestionable "Faith" in God behind when he entered the forest of darkness. Brown also says to the devil that he "kept covenant" (261) by showing ... up. Perhaps he made a subconscious pact to meet with the devil, his darkness. At the ceremony, the devil says to Goodman, "Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own ...

• Word Count: 1393
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... puritan woman full of strong passions, Hester Prynne is the main character in the story. Employed as the village seamstress, she is strong and caring, helping anyone she can when he or she is in need. With a penitent heart, Hester travels through the story becoming only a shadow of her former passionate loving self. The letter that Hester was forced to wear upon her bosom, the scarlet letter was ... not only a symbol of her adulterous sin, but of the women herself. The letter masks her beauty and passion as the story goes until it is what she is known. Other ... -was that SCARLET LETTER...

• Word Count: 1015
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... that he seemed to fly along the forest path rather than to walk or run. The road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing onward with the instinct that guides mortals to evil" (Hawthorne 1212). Goodman Brown has consciously turned into a product of the devil. Upon midnight, Goodman ... Brown arrives at the grounds were he and Faith are to be converted. He believes he sees the people from his church all gathered in ... conscience. As he sinks deeper into both, they become more complex. The devi...

• Word Count: 1398
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... to achieve this goal. He enters the darkness of the forest on his heroic journey not knowing what lies ahead. Darkness, in this case, doesn't only mean nighttime. Darkness refers to the mysteries of what lies in the shadows, the truth about the people of Salem village, and the fear inside of Goodman Brown. Another important aspect of the hero's quest in "Young Goodman Brown" is that what the hero seeks is usually no more ... than a symbol of what he really finds. (Stillman 41) ... grace did not exist. It taught that one could not trust anyone. (McCabe 3) Although Goodman Brown felt a "....

• Word Count: 1815
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... of the ultimate evil. First, Hawthorne sets Chillingworth up as the antithesis of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the obvious Christ-like symbol of the novel. Chillingworth avidly sets out to ruin Dimmesdale. As the narrative voice says when referring to Chillingworth's discovery of the Dimmesdale's secret, "All that guilty sorrow, hidden from the world, whose great heart would have pitied and forgiven, to be revealed to him, the Pitiless, to him, the Unforgiving!" (96). The capitalization of the ... hunched. He is compared to weeds and such. His profession is described as being much like w...

• Word Count: 307
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School

... Brown's wife, Faith because by the end of the story the main character has lost all faith in his wife, the community, and God. The meeting with the Devil was quite symbolic. Nature, specifically the wind, forest, and the darkness of the evening symbolizes evil and sinfulness. The wind was howling and there is a dark cloud, which seems to cover up heaven. The forest in general represents the Devil's home, Hell. The Devil carries a staff resembling ... ; Brown could have dreamt the whole evil gathering or it could have actually been reality. Whether it was a dream or reality, Brown's life ...

• Word Count: 999
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life." (Hawthorne, 48) The way that Dimmesdale speaks to Hester shows that he wants his name to be revealed, he just cannot bring himself to do it ... . He pleads with her to reveal his name, but she takes it as him being the innocent minister he is supposed to be. This first ... returns to him and he says he will stand with them, but not tomorrow. The minister finally gets the courage to mount ...

• Word Count: 1498
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... earthly one-(1342). While Dimmesdale awaited her appeal, he placed his hand over his heart "a habit the reader will recognize further through the novel. The second scaffold scene occurs seven years later at night. Out of remorse and seven years of private penance, Dimmesdale makes his way to the scaffold and stands in the cool night air. Unlike Hester, however, he has no audience, and even if ... someone were to see him, they would not recognize him in the darkness. This scene is a slight progression toward the final one, for Dimmesdale invites Hester and ... Pearl to stand with him. P...

• Word Count: 492
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... her own Reverend Dimmesdale cries out, "She will not speak!" and places his hand, for the first time, over his heart. This gesture will reappear and grow in significance during the course of the novel. However, this is also the same gesture that Hester Prynne makes when remembering the scarlet letter upon her own bosom. Hawthorne brilliantly connects Hester Prynne's openly displayed shame with Reverend ... like them, in order to purify the body and render it the fitter medium of celestial illumination,--but rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance. He ...

• Word Count: 2932
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: High School

... that everyone has skeletons in their closet. Ultimately, sin can work its way into anyone's life. Although one may seem pure on the surface, everyone battles with the darkness inside them. This story pulls at one's heart's strings, and makes one analyze the good and evil that lies within during their religious fight. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a dreary and gloomy setting to portray that both good ... and evil dwell within man. Brown had taken a "dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow ... ...

• Word Count: 724
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... life in Young Goodman heart and mind. Is there is the same struggle he had, the same that we encounter everyday? However the symbols used by Nathaniel Hawthorne have a complex and meaningful importance to our lives. In the story the more significant symbols are those of the names, the people he found in the forest, the forest, and the things that some of the character had. One of the symbols is the names. The name Young Goodman Brown ... to walk through "a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest of the forest"? And are our lives or experiences like this road described above? The man ...

• Word Count: 713
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... affected by an "inward disease". Yet, the most noticeable sign of his corruption concerns his soul. Rappaccini loses his humanity in the course of pursuing scientific goals. This effect is reflected so clearly in the scientist's body that Giovanni notices from the first sight that he is devoid of any "warmth of heart". He is so dehumanized that he sacrifices his ... daughter for his experiments. He deprives her of any consideration except for the scientific one; she is a mere object of study for him. Rappaccini nourishes Beatrice with poison ... advises Giovanni to look out of the windo...

• Word Count: 9442
• Approx Pages: 38
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... into the darkness of the Salem woods is a symbol of evil and question of faith. Goodman Brown is about to begin his struggle between the evil temptations of the devil, and the church abiding life he knows as reality. He will challenge his faith in himself and the community in which he resides. He must venture into the local forest where puritans believe the devil resides, refuse the temptations of the devil, and return to the village ... . Brown tries to rationalize what he heard. He tries to figure out why these two men would be in the woods at such an hour of the night. Brown's faith i...

• Word Count: 1650
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... pure, but Chillingworth's revenge is deadly. Hawthorne adds Cillingworth to the novel as Hester is receiving her punishment for ery, which compels Cillingworth to his hatred and revenge. Cillingworth devotes his life to revenge, which leads him to a state of darkness. Cillingworth has an idea of who the father is, but needs evidence. Throughout the novel Cillingworth lets his vengeance control his life. He gives ... the minister potions to make him feel better, but in reality the potions are slowly killing him. Cillingworth does not want to kill Hester, but instead ... lets her live wit...

• Word Count: 759
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... " (Rom. 5:12). According to Paul, humanity was cursed because Adam sinned when he ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Since the creation of Adam, all is guilty of sin. Every living soul will have to face judgment on the second coming of Christ, and not everyone handles sin in the same manner. Lucky for us all we have a loving and forgiving father. A fictional story titled ... on earth there shall be no veil or darkness between our souls. This is but a mortal veil. It will not be for eternity" (214). However, Mr. Hooper's final decision not to remove his veil even for Elizabe...

• Word Count: 1067
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... than the ominous darkness and corruption of the world surrounding it. The natural purity of their love is addressed earlier as the two share and intimate conversation in the woods and the sun breaks through the clouds. "Such [is] the sympathy of Nature -- that wild, heathen Nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth -- with the bliss of these two spirits! Love ... must always create a sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance ... that it overflows upon the outward world" (186). Extending this metaphor of the radiance of ! love, Hawthorne oft...

• Word Count: 1485
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... red. While colors add symbolic depth to the novel, lights and darks also contribute to the symbolism of Hawthorne's book. From his application of these light and darks, one can conclude that darkness correlates with exposed secrets while the light of the sun is representational of spurious innocence and hidden secrets. Therefore, the reader can anticipate Hester's choice of a small cottage in the woods as her humble abode. Likewise, it is no ... and Dimmesdale, each with their own hidden secrets, choose the town as a place of residence. As Nathaniel Hawthorne manipulates lights and dark...

• Word Count: 543
• Approx Pages: 2
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School