... friends, a marriage, and a daughter, Hawthorne became engulfed in "his consuming interest in the nation's history, particularly the Puritan past; his exploration of the psychological and emotional factors underlying human behavior; his eagerness to understand the power and politics of sexuality; his probing of sin, concealment, guilt, penance, and redemption; and his willingness to entertain and dramatize different points of ... cultural, and religious questions" (Gale Literary Databases). These interests allowed Hawthorne to recognize the harm that results in humans" reluctance to accep...

• Word Count: 1523
• Approx Pages: 6

... he insists on removing Georgiana's blemish and connection to humanity to fulfill his conditional love, which is seeing Georgiana as perfect. However, Aylmer's attempt to destroy the birthmark and Georgiana's human nature fails. Katherine Snipes, literary critic and author of Robert Graves, believes the following: "Hawthorne casts all blame for the tragic outcome on the misguided husband [Aylmer], who is not ... that Aylmer's view of the birthmark as a flaw encourages Aylmer to seize the opportunity to make Georgiana a perfect human being (48). This opportunity, however, leads to Georgian...

• Word Count: 1568
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... best that earth has to offer. Dearest-dearest Aylmer- I am dying (Hawthorne, 1963, p. 219)!" But the individualistic stereotypes are so obsessed with perfecting nature that they will stop at nothing with their particular goal in mind. Hawthorne is not sure we are capable of a healthy balance between public and private ... shows that Aylmer, the scientist, has reduced Georgiana, who is the embodiment of the typical private life, to an object and not the perfection of nature that she is. The narrator says, "The latter pursuit however, Aylmer had long laid aside, in unwilling recognition of...

• Word Count: 1442
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... much persuasion, he encourages Georgiana to allow him to experiment on her, attempting to prove his hypothesis that he has the power to change nature. She reluctantly submits to his coercion, assuming that is the only way she will ever acquire his true love. Georgiana, in extreme desperation ... the theme of preservation of nature. The manipulation of living things by science is usually favorable. Most of the time science is used to cure people from illnesses, but sometimes it can be used futilely. To change the genes or natural form of a human being is a violation of ... hideousness. ...

• Word Count: 1415
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... apparent in the novel. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the characters in the story to help develop the themes of identity in society, the nature of evil, and secrecy versus exposure of sin. To begin, the theme of identity in society is developed through the characters of Hester, Mr. Dimmesdale ... Anne W. Abbott states, "But Little Pearl "gem of the purest water "what shall we say of her? That if perfect truth to childish and human nature can make her a mortal, she is so; and immortal, if the highest creations of genius have any claim to immortality. " Here it is shown tha...

• Word Count: 1923
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography

... society as a whole, against them. Hawthorne's use of the rosebush implies that there may be an indestructible human impulse that can survive in people despite social order and natural rights. Another romantic nature symbol is the forest, which symbolizes both safe and evil aspects. An instance of the forest being evil can ... beautiful implies that she was not guilty of a crime. The act she committed was not a crime against humanity, nor was it a crime against nature. The only negativity of what happened was that of the Puritan society and its unnatural and restrictive laws, forcing its ...

• Word Count: 1687
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... 's the Scarlet Letter. The marketplace is to stand for religious doctrine and Puritanical code, and the forest wilderness is to present the evil of human nature, at times it works against its purpose and serves as an explanation for why things happen the way they do. To support thesis, the ... It is in this public marketplace, Roger Chillingworth disguises himself among the crowd and change his name. The forest and its dark wilderness symbolize the evil nature of man to the people of Boston. This unknown wilderness also provides an outlet for evil in an otherwise "perfect" society. An un...

• Word Count: 2453
• Approx Pages: 10
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... Nathaniel Hawthorne traces Young Goodman Brown's experiences, physical and psychological, paralleling the Hero's Journey and showing how he discovers that humans are truly evil by nature; therefore, altering his views of other humans and life itself. In the beginning of the story, Goodman Brown is faced with a decision to ... is so dramatically changed emotionally during his excursion, he remains sad and distrustful for the rest of his life, due to knowing the truth about human nature. Young Goodman Brown must leave behind his known world, Salem village, and enter an unknown world, the ...

• Word Count: 1258
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... the veil manifests in physical form. This is significant because it demonstrates an important theme across much of Hawthorne's literature, which is constant human imperfection. Similarly, Young Goodman Brown includes a quote saying "The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds-the creaking of the trees, ... of Indians; while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar around the traveler, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other horrors." ( ... teach their co...

• Word Count: 1379
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... Hawthorne, known as one of America's greatest authors, wrote short stories and novels from about 1825-1860. His works are noted for their psychological probing into human nature, especially its darker side. Hawthorne wrote "Young Goodman Brown" in 1835. (World 118) Goodman Brown, the main character in the story, is the hero ... Before he experienced his journey into the woods, Brown never knew that such sin and disbelief existed and definitely not in him. (Washington 1) The heroic nature of "Young Goodman Brown" has historical background. The statement that Hawthorne makes for "Young Good...

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

... time for to broaden his life through reading, thinking, walking, observing, and writing. Thoreau was a devoted, naturalist. He disciplined himself to observe the natural phenomena. Thoreau"'s descriptions and interpretations of nature enriched all of his work; even his essays and lectures on political issues. His use of images and comparisons based on his studies of animal behavior, life cycles of plants ... his simple way of life in order to free himself from the self-imposed social and financial constraints. He also stresses that everyone should create a more intimate relationship betw...

• Word Count: 1271
• Approx Pages: 5

... Nathaniel Hawthorn's "The Birthmark," the main character Aylmer struggles for scientific perfection; he attempts to perfect that which nature rendered imperfect. When the quest for human achievement opposes divine design it has no chance of succeeding. This key element in Aylmer's twisted love leads to ... has the knowledge and the means to change his wife's appearance, regardless of the possible out come, allows the reader to see how much this nature possessed him. His entire mood shows how science receives the greater part of his affections; "Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspe...

• Word Count: 1411
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... doom on the San Dominick. "Captain Delano's surprise might have deepened into some uneasiness had he not been a person of a singularly distrustful good nature, not liable, except on extraordinary and repeated excitement, and hardly then, to indulge in personal alarms, any way involving the imputation of malign evil in ... the blacks, he actually admires them and their submissiveness, which is condescending on it's own, but he does not see them as fully human. "Captain Delano's nature was not only benign, but familiarly and humorously so" (41). He continuously refers to the blacks as anima...

• Word Count: 1557
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... mob. In Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, the quest for identity undertakes deeper meanings, which spring out from the exploration of the darker side of human nature. Either in The Black Cat or The Cask of Amontillado, the quest for the narrator's identity is linked to the search and discovery of the ... order to locate this bird she has to climb the tallest tree around. It is the turning point for Sylvia. She became so close to nature and felt its existence all around. When she finally sees the white heron something inside her changes. She saw herself in the white heron and ... not only...

• Word Count: 2241
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... Had a man seen old Roger Chillingworth at that moment of ecstasy, he would have had no need to ask how Satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to heaven and won into his kingdom- (124). Dimmesdale's mark turns suspicion into fact, and the physician is now at the ... , however, Pearl brings him back to reality. While the girl has developed many "elfish- qualities, she has a knack for pushing the buttons of human emotion. So when she asks Dimmesdale to join her and her mother on the scaffold the following day, the narrator explains his feeling, " with the ... long been t...

• Word Count: 1627
• Approx Pages: 7
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... voice is described a final time two pages later, it remains "a strange, vague murmur, which might be likened to an indistinct shadow of human utterance" (97)-the descriptions from before recycled to exacerbate our frustration and keep us in darkness; we never do discern the source of ... Having laid the foundation of imperfect, indiscernible evidence in his creation of suspense through style and diction, Hawthorne begins to drop hints regarding the nature of the evidence that kick-start the imagination due to the connotations of the imagery. Notably, his trigger words center mainly on g...

• Word Count: 1547
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Graduate

... the story, even when Mistress Hibbins and young Pearl are speaking. The Scarlet Letter uses dark romanticism as Hawthorne attempts to explain the sinfulness of human nature and why people act as they do. In a satirical way, he almost mocks the "nonconformist" culture and its faults, as one of ... was in one of those moods of perverse merriment which, whenever they occurred, seemed to remove her entirely out of the sphere of sympathy of human contact (p. 122)" Hawthorne makes use of situational irony at many points in the novel. It is ironic that Dimmesdale, a highly regarded Puritan cle...

• Word Count: 1296
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... bore a part, had developed all her sympathies, and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor for ever do battle with the world, but be a women in it" (234). On the other hand, Pearl was considered ... object which would fain have been, or at least ought to be, concealed" (73). Hester lives on the outskirts of Boston and near the forest. Nature symbolizes Hester's internal conflict, it gives a deeper understanding of what is occurring in the plot. Hester could live in the forest, where she fits better, ... cloud...

• Word Count: 1931
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

... citizen, and his reputation is spotless. He is on good terms with the community, and its leaders. He is the social ideal, yet his moral nature is poisonous. "He has put his devilish lust of vengeance in the place of god, and day by day he worships it, and performs its ... then even the polluted priest! That old mans revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart." Yet society has no stigma to fix upon his breast. (Hawthorne 19). Hawthorne clearly indicates that Chillingworth's sin of tormenting Dimmesdale is greater than ... physically....

• Word Count: 1373
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... in which the novel takes place and the forest just beyond it represent good and evil. The city tries to reflect the "City on a Hill," a utopian town flowing with the human ideal for the city of God based upon His laws as read in the Bible. The people of the city attempt to be good in order to fit in to ... evil sins occur. To establish that the forest is a symbol of evil, light never shines there. Whenever light does shine through, it is meant to expose the sinful truth and nature in a person, They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were light that is to rev...

• Word Count: 1820
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... the novel when she was in the forest with Dimmesdale and her daughter Pearl. As you can see, both victims of such crimes are seen differently and were once normal human beings before the news broke out of their "sins." Although Hester a character in a novel and Ray rice a famous celebrity football player are living very different lives at different time periods ... not, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is the right thing to do. It is also viewed as immorall to society. There are extreme cases that require shunning because of human nature to know what is right and what is wrong and t...

• Word Count: 1654
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... of revenge among his three main characters. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne uses his very different characters to show that no matter what type of person one may be, human nature is absorbed with revenge. Human beings are not perfect and the feeling to "get even" or "get back" at someone who has wronged you is very normal, almost expected. Roger Chillingworth is clearly ... the story healthy. All the main characters in the story were constructed with different lifestyles, yet Hawthorne was able to stress the theme that revenge is engraved in all of human nature, whether lifestyles or ba...

• Word Count: 1589
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... 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 ... Dimmesdale, embodies this theme. The child of sin becomes "her mother's only treasure... Man had marked [Hester's] sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy co...

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

... of revenge among his three main characters. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne uses his very different characters to show that no matter what type of person one may be, human nature is absorbed with revenge. Human beings are not perfect and the feeling to "get even" or "get back" at someone who has wronged you is very normal, almost expected. Roger Chillingworth is clearly ... the story healthy. All the main characters in the story were constructed with different lifestyles, yet Hawthorne was able to stress the theme that revenge is engraved in all of human nature, whether lifestyles or ba...

• Word Count: 1480
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... Transcendentalism, as expressed by Emerson, is finding your own way to connect with yourself, who you are, and your peace with yourself. Your necessities. Your desires. Your nature. The only way to truly find your transcendentalism is to create your own path to get there. The two most prominent authorities on the philosophy are Ralph Waldo Emerson, ... order to defeat this, he decided he had to leave everything behind that was not absolutely necessary. When Thoreau moved to Walden Pond, it was to connect with nature, rely on his own self, but mostly to simplify all that he did not need t...

• Word Count: 1271
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School