Colonial Transformations: The Cultural Production of the New Atlantic World, 1580-1640; The Story of A: The Alphabetization of America from "The New England Primer" to "The Scarlet Letter."; The Consent of the Governed: The Lockean Legacy in Early American Culture

2002 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 403-405
Author(s):  
L. Henigman
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
The Scarlet Letter ◽  
Early American

scholarly journals Puritan Projections In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s "The Scarlet Letter" And Stephen King’s "Carrie"

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-86
Author(s):  
Maria Anastasova
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
American Culture ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Female Identity ◽  
Gothic Literature ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
The Scarlet Letter ◽  
American Novels ◽  
The Witch

It is considered that the Puritans that populated New England in the 17th century left a distinctive mark on the American culture. The article explores some projections of Puritan legacy in two American novels of different periods – Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) and Stephen King’s Carrie (1974). After establishing a connection between the Puritan writings and gothic literature, the two novels are analyzed in terms of some Puritan projections, among which are the problem of guilt and the acceptance of an individual in the society. Some references regarding the idea of the witch and the interpretations it bears, especially in terms of the female identity, are also identified. Despite the different approach of the authors in terms of building their characters, those references are mostly used in a negative way, as an instrument of criticism and exposing inconvenient truths.

Cities, States, and Citizens in the Atlantic World: Towards a New Narrative

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 179-246
Author(s):  
Emma Hart ◽  
Robert J. Allison ◽  
Paul P. Musselwhite ◽  
Daniel K. Richter ◽  
Mark Peterson
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Early America ◽  
Us History ◽  
Early American ◽  
Mark Peterson ◽  
Historical Trajectory ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
Interpretative Framework

Abstract In his book Mark Peterson presents an innovative perspective on the development of Boston and its New England hinterland as an early modern city-state. His purpose was to tell the story of Boston in its own right, shedding US national history as the dominant interpretative framework. The four reviewers pick up various strands, focusing, among others, on the validity of the city-state concept, especially as Boston did not become an incorporated city until 1822, criticize what one of them sees as an attempt to return New England to the center of early American historiography, and assess whether the city-state model can be applied elsewhere in early America and in the Atlantic World. In his response, Peterson argues that his aim was not to propose a city-state paradigm for comparative purposes, but rather to employ the city-state concept as the best way to explain Boston’s historical trajectory over two centuries, and to highlight the contingency of US history.

An Analysis of Symbolic Images in The Scarlet Letter

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 1725
Author(s):  
Haihong Gao
Keyword(s):  
Work Experience ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
The Scarlet Letter ◽  
Early American ◽  
American Colonies ◽  
American Law ◽  
Deep Meaning ◽  
Symbolic Images

The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathanial Hawthorne in 1850, with the background of seventeenth Century of the early American colonies, taking the tragic love between pastor Arthur Dimmesdale and a woman named Hester's as content, which revealed the dim of American law, and hypocrisy of religion. So this novel filled with the religion plot and conveyed the humanity feelings. This paper focuses on the symbolic technique to analyze The Scarlet Letter. By rethinking and criticizing the Puritanism, this paper wants to reveal the dark side of man nature and arouse readers ’thought on morality. Predecessor researchers analyzed The Scarlet Letter from the aspects of feminist, religion and moral. But this paper turn view, it analyze the novel from symbolic images technique. This paper consists of three parts. The first part introduces the author, including his background, study and work experience, and the influence of his novels. The second part introduces the symbolism, including its definition and effect. In the third part, in order to reveal the hypocrisy of the religious at that time, to reveal the rebellious spirit of women, I will interpret the symbolic images from three aspects: the nature, color, time. Through the analysis of the symbolic images, readers can find the deep meaning of the context, which can strengthen people’s understanding of the characters, scenes and the plot of the novel. This can promote the comprehensive understanding of this greatest novel.

The New England Sources of The Scarlet Letter

1959 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Ryskamp
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
The Scarlet Letter

scholarly journals The Scarlet Letter: Embroidering Transcendentalism and Anti-transcendentalism Thread for an Early American World

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 474
Author(s):  
Ramtin Noor-Tehrani (Noor) Mahini ◽  
Erin Barth
Keyword(s):  
Nathaniel Hawthorne ◽  
Ralph Waldo Emerson ◽  
Henry David Thoreau ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
The Scarlet Letter ◽  
Early American ◽  
American Perspective

Published in 1850 by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the dark romantic story of The Scarlet Letter was immediately met with success, and Hawthorne was recognized as the first fictional writer to truly represent American perspective and experience. At the time when most novelists focused on portraying the outside world, Hawthorne dwelled deeply in the innermost, hidden emotional and mental psyches of his characters. Despite being acquainted to both famed transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau and married to the transcendentalist painter Sophia Peabody, Hawthorne was often referred to as anti-transcendentalist or dark romantic writer in The Scarlet Letter. Is he also influenced by the transcendentalist movement in his famed novel?  Evidence shows that he is more transcendentalist than anti-transcendentalist in The Scarlet Letter.

scholarly journals Creative Agency in The Scarlet Letter

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tia Byer
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
American Renaissance ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
The Scarlet Letter ◽  
Institutional Authority ◽  
Creative Agency ◽  
Creative Resistance

This article provides a critical analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s employment of artistic defiance in The Scarlet Letter. In reading Hester Prynne’s artistic ability and theological dissent as tools of creative resistance, the article claims that Hawthorne uses self-expression to critique Puritan values. When Hester redesigns the symbol of the scarlet letter A that she is forced to wear as a punishment for the sin of committing adultery, the act of sewing becomes a transgressive form of resistance. By examining the way in which she transforms her symbol of shame into an expression of autonomy, I trace the spiritual significance of Hester’s resistance and Hawthorne’s statement of individualism as reflecting the Transcendentalist rhetoric of early nineteenth-century New England. Hester’s ability to transcend institutional authority to create an independent identity, in turn, cultivates an independent relationship with God. Finally, I read Hawthorne’s own parallel creative struggle as author as a metaphor for national independent identity that can be contextualised within the American Renaissance.

Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter: The Theory of the Romance and the Use of the New England Situation

PMLA ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 83 (5) ◽  
pp. 1439-1447 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Stubbs
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Moral Argument ◽  
Scarlet Letter ◽  
The Scarlet Letter ◽  
Prose Romance ◽  
Complex Characterization

AbstractTo write The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne drew on mid-nineteenthcentury theories of the prose romance and the central situation of New England romances. The romance was distinguished from the novel by the idea of artistic distance; romancers wanted to set human experience at a distance from their readers' world so that the meaning of the experience would be more clear. To get the distance exactly right, they balanced three sets of opposites: verisimilitude and ideality; the natural and the marvelous; and history and fiction. Hawthorne discussed each of the balances and used them as part of his conception of the form of The Scarlet Letter. The central situation of most contemporary romances about Puritanism provided him with the conflict of the “fair Puritan” and the “black Puritan.” Hester is his “fair Puritan” whose capacity for feeling is opposed to the reasoned but harsh justice of his “black Puritan,” Chillingworth. These two characters in their roles as types define the extreme sides of the moral argument Hawthorne synthesizes in the complex characterization of Dimmesdale.

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