... he did respect their beliefs, but thought they handled them inappropriately. "Even the very intensity of their faith, so admirable in a way, made them, he thought, liable to bigotry" (Waggoner 15). In most of his novels and stories, there is a strong display of the Puritan society's reaction to a certain primary character's struggle. Hypocrisy being a major element, Hawthorne also used guilt, confession, and sin as smaller ... Black Veil." In the novel, Hester Prynne has guilt, but no inner guilt that she is hiding from anyone. Everyone knows she has sinned, and it is all out in the open...

• Word Count: 3188
• Approx Pages: 13
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... was commenting on the laws of the Puritan communities. All of these may be correct. Hawthorne himself may not be able to tell a person the exact point of his story, but that is the beauty of it. The reader can decide for him or herself. I have read The Scarlet Letter a few times and every time I am left feeling empowered by the character of Hester Prynne. She is the ... hero, or heroine, of this story in ... was commenting on the laws of the Puritan communities. All of these may be correct. Hawthorne himself may not be able to tell a person the exact point of his story, but that is the...

• Word Count: 3565
• Approx Pages: 14
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... . The paternal figure represents a mirror and a reflection of themselves. The father is the model that every son depends on. Nonetheless, Nathaniel is deprived from all this; he has no projection of himself. Hence, through the character Rappaccini, he wants to express his missing of his father. He makes the doctor over-protective to reveal his wish and envy for that protection; i.e. ... the writer tries to heal his injury via his story. Adding to that, he makes no evidence of Beatrice's mother; throughout the ... changes and invents oppositions to the Bible to prove his contradiction to...

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

... on Zenobia, despite the fact that Coverdale claims that he was in love with Priscilla. When he does speak of Priscilla, he defines her as someone who Coverdale desires to have control over. I would like to take a much more pedestrian look at Priscilla's character, not trying to find well-hidden, dark sexual secrets, but instead looking at her as a well-developed ... in Washington Irving's "The Wife,"" or it can cling and suffocate, destroying the object that it clings to, much like a parasite. In an interesting word choice, Priscilla is described as a "gentle parasite,"" (114) in referenc...

• Word Count: 4739
• Approx Pages: 19
• Has Bibliography

... 's when racism was a very real and almost natural part of life. What inspired him to write the story was the lynching of a man named Robert Lewis who had been accused, but not tried, for raping a white woman. This unjust racist deed helped him evaluate the prejudice against the black race and symbolize it all in one character, Henry Johnson. Stephen Cane's "The Monster" can be ... related to Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" in that both characters ... go through transformations. While Goodman Brown's transformation was more spiritual and emotional, Henry Johnson's was more ph...

• Word Count: 2988
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: High School

... only place within Puritan society in which the true essence of a person may be exposed. Reverend Dimmesdale, facing his fears about his reputation to the townspeople, is able to break the barriers placed upon him as the result of his sin as he climbs upon the scaffold to confess his secret to all. When he arrives to the top of the scaffold, he calls out, "Hester Prynne, come hither ... the sweet man he was before his death and not as shamefully as he could have been. Reverend Dimmesdale is a stagnant character because he cannot allow himself to face the reality that would cause him to g...

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