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.

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

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.

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.

Clerical Dismissals in Colonial and Revolutionary New Hampshire

1980 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 160-177
Author(s):  
George B. Kirsch
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Change ◽  
New England ◽  
New Hampshire ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Changing Roles

Over the past several decades American historians have emphasized the importance of New England ministers as town leaders during the colonial and Revolutionary eras. Recently, several scholars have examined changing roles of Congregational and Presbyterian pastors from the 1630s to the early nineteenth century. Ministerial dismissals are an important aspect of this subject, yet historians have not given this topic the critical analysis it deserves. This essay will discuss the nature of these dismissals and explain their significance in relation to several broad questions of social change in New England prior to 1790. Although New Hampshire's experience with clerical removals was not necessarily representative of New England, that state merits special attention because it has been neglected in studies of this period.

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