More handpicked essays just for you.
Critical analysis of the scarlet letter
Essays on characters from the scarlet letter
Influence of religion in scarlet letter
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Use of Chiaroscuro in The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne the author of The Scarlet Letter uses the literary device of chiaroscuro to effectively develop his characters. Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804 to a prominent family. His father passed away on a voyage when he was four years old. His relatives recognized his talent, and they helped pay his way to Bowdoin College. Hawthorne and his classmates became the most prominent people in America at that time. He had many strong ties with important people from attending Bowdoin, such as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Franklin Pierce. In 1828, his first novel, Fanshawe was anonymously published at his own expense. In 1842, he befriended Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Bronson Alcott, and married Sophia Peabody, an active member of the Transcendentalist movement. In 1846, he was appointed surveyor of the Port of Salem where he worked for the next three years, being unable to earn a living as a writer. He wrote The Scarlet Letter in 1850, showing the Puritans as hypocrites fixated on sin. This romance was an immediate success, even though it received many criticisms for its risqué topic. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne effectively uses chiaroscuro to develop the personalities of Hester Prynne, Pearl, and Arthur Dimmesdale.
Hawthorne uses chiaroscuro to show Hester Prynne as a woman whose sin has overtaken her, and made her impure. One example of this is: “The mother’s…medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant the rays of its moral life; and however white and clear originally, they ...
... middle of paper ...
... In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne effectively uses chiaroscuro to develop the personalities of Hester Prynne, Pearl, and Arthur Dimmesdale. Hawthorne uses chiaroscuro to show the depth of Hester’s guilt and strength of bearing her sin and Arthur’s secret. Pearl is characterized as radiant through Hawthorne’s vibrant descriptions of her beauty. He uses the sun to depict the purity of Pearl. Hawthorne uses shadows to show how Arthur is a meager man compared to Hester, also bearing the sin. Hawthorne shows Arthur deteriorating from his guilt, while Hester pushes herself to live on and try to overcome it, still always bearing its weight and pain. In conclusion, chiaroscuro is effectively used by Hawthorne to develop the personalities of his characters.
“I am not what I am,” proclaims one of Shakespeare’s darkest and most enigmatic villains, Iago, in the tragedy Othello. Iago’s journey for revenge enables him to become capable of immoral acts, and whilst his malevolence excites us, we are no more intrigued by his attributes than we are of the play’s tragic hero, Othellos’. Rather, both characters’ confrontation with jealousy and their subsequent moral demise as a result of failing to control such an emotion provides the true excitement for audiences. Iago’s spiteful manipulation of Othello makes him a multifaceted character — whose corrupt attributes make the audience examine their own morality. However, the same can be said of Othello; his failure to withstand Iago’s ‘pouring of pestilence’
Iago, Othello’s ensign, and the villain of the play, performs his monstrous acts in a complex way by deceiving others to believe that he is honest and reliable while using this reputation to manipulate others. In this section, Iago says very little to deceive Othello into thinking that he has information that he would want to know. Iago’s clever use of silence and intimacy
Hawthorne turned to writing after his graduation from Bowdoin College. His first novel, Fanshawe, was unsuccessful and Hawthorne himself disavowed it as amateurish. However, he wrote several successful short stories, including "My Kinsman, Major Molyneaux," "Roger Malvin's Burial" and "Young Goodman Brown." However, insufficient earnings as a writer forced Hawthorne to enter a career as a Boston Custom House measurer in 1839. After three years Hawthorne was dismissed from his job with the Salem Custom House. By 1842 his writing amassed Hawthorne a sufficient income for him to marry Sophia Peabody and move to The Manse in Concord, which was at that time the center of the Transcendental movement. Hawthorne returned to Salem in 1845, where he was appointed surveyor of the Boston Custom House by President James Polk, but was dismissed from this post when Zachary Taylor became president. Hawthorne then devoted himself to his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter. He zealously worked on the novel with a determination he had not known before. His intense suffering infused the novel with imaginative energy, leading him to describe it as the "hell-fired story." On February 3, 1850, Hawthorne read the final pages to his wife. He wrote, "It broke her heart and sent her to bed with a grievous headache, which I look upon as a triumphant success.
Gardner, Helen. “Othello: A Tragedy of Beauty and Fortune.” Readings on The Tragedies. Ed. Clarice Swisher. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1996. Reprint from “The Noble Moor.” British Academy Lectures, no. 9, 1955.
Othello avoids all irrelevancies and the action moves swiftly from the first scene to the denouement. We never get lost in a multiplicity of incidents or a multitude of characters. Our attention remains centered on the arch villainy of Iago and his plot to plant in Othello’s mind a corroding belief in his wife’s faithlessness. (viii)
Implicitly targeting Othello’s doubts about marrying Desdemona and insecurities about her actions with infidelity, Iago eventually impacts Othello enough that the General himself confides in Iago about his own wife. Earlier in the play, ‘honest Iago’ needs to first gain Othello’s confidence and he does so by expressing his loyalty to Cassio, “I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth/ Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio”, while Othello is present in a conflict (2.3. 203-204). Then, later in the play Iago baits Othello by suggesting that Desdemona and Cassio are having an affair. Immediately, Othello wants more information; however, Iago nervously responds with, “…vicious in my guess-/ As I confess…” and tries to calm Othello by saying, “My noble lord-” (3.3 46-47, 93). When voicing his devotion to Cassio, Iago immediately begins to play on his false reputation as ‘honest Iago’. He enables Othello, and his fellow characters, to think highly of him and to respect that even when his partner, Cassio, has not been following orders, Iago would even endure physical pain and have his “tongue cut from [his] mouth” and proves his locality (2.3. 203). This leads to when Iago responds to Othello’s queries, about
In the continuance of the play, Othello’s eloquence suffers because of the increasing strain coming from Iago. Othello is introduced in
There exists a kind of person who can be called by no other name than by “Magnificent Bastard”. They are masters of deception, bloody brilliant, unstoppable in achieving their goals even when it means grinding others into the dust, and yet they have such a flair, such a charming disposition, that they are often admired by even those who are wronged by them. Iago in Shakespeare’s play Othello is one such character. The audience may love or hate him, but either way they must admit that he commands the spot-light. In spite of this, the reason why Iago acts as he does is shrouded in mystery. Even when directly speaking to the audience about his motivations, Iago is not always truthful. In reality, while Iago derives great pleasure from manipulating others, his driving motivation throughout the entire play is his own jealousy; from being unrecognized for his greatness, to an impossible love for Desdemona, and of the virtuous characters all around him.
Bellamy idea on future economic and technological developments were very realistic. He imagines goods being bought in centralized warehouses tied together in a complex, super-fast and efficient nation-spanning logistic system. This idea reminded me the idea of Wal-mart and Amazon and other big chain warehouses. He imagined the idea of telephones and purchases being made with something like a credit card. He has the idea of an "Access Cards" given to the needy to purchase food, medical care and other necessities and this reminded me of our warfare system and the idea of the EBT card for food to the low income
Continually confronted with his difference, and apparently associated inferiority, Othello eventually ingests and manifests this difference in a violent rage against the symbol and defining emblem of his otherness, Desdemona. Yet, who is to blame? Which character is redeemed through our sympathy so that another can be condemned? Othello, the dark-skinned murdering Moor, himself. The separation of his otherness from explicit and innate evil contrasted with Iago's free-flowing and early-established taste for revenge and punishment, alleviates Othello from responsibility. Surely, Othello has wronged and is to be held reprehensible--with his death--but even this is a self-infli...
Language and imagination are among the most dangerous weapons Iago has at his disposal in Othello. Jealous and angered by Othello’s - his commanding officer - passing over him for a promotion, Iago develops a fierce, antagonistic perspective the aforementioned character; this sentiment quickly corrupts his volition, and he subsequently concocts a plot bent on destroying Othello. He renders this revenge scheme credible by concealing his true feelings behind a facade of loyalty and trustworthiness, and fabricating a fictitious story concerning the infidelity of Desdemona, Othello’s wife. Until the play concludes, Iago utilizes purposeful rhetoric to drive his agenda, and also a mastery of deception to mislead the minds of his targets.
In Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the reader meets the character Hester Prynne who as the novel progresses, one notices the changes in her character are very dramatic. The changes are both physical and in her mannerism’s. There are many significant events which took place before the start of the novel and during the novel. Some of these events that lead to this dramatic change include the affect of wearing the scarlet letter, the secrets which she keeps, and her daughter Pearl’s evil characteristics. By these events, Hester Prynne’s image is transformed throughout the time of the story.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is one of the most respected and admired novels of all time. Often criticized for lacking substance and using more elaborate camera work, freely adapted films usually do not follow the original plot line. Following this cliché, Roland Joffe’s version of The Scarlet Letter received an overwhelmingly negative reception. Unrealistic plots and actions are added to the films for added drama; for example, Hester is about to be killed up on the scaffold, when Algonquin members arrive and rescue her. After close analysis, it becomes evident of the amount of work that is put into each, but one must ask, why has the director adapted their own style of depicting the story? How has the story of Hester Prynne been modified? Regarding works, major differences and similarities between the characterization, visual imagery, symbolism, narration and plot, shows how free adaptation is the correct term used.
Chiaroscuro is a literary device that displays the juxtaposition of light and shade. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses chiaroscuro affectively in The Scarlet Letter to define which side of good and sinfulness envelops the characters of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Pearl.
Despite the negative foregrounding of Othello’s character by Iago, our first impressions of Othello in Act 1 are of a noble and well-spoken man, his nobility is conveyed through his speech ‘most potent grave and reverend signiors’(1.3.76) to his future father-in-law Brabantio of Othello’s love for his daughter Desdemona in Act 1 Scene 3. This is a very different character to what we expect from Iago’s preparation for the introduction of Othello. Where we are expecting an angry and possibly violent character, we instead are met with something completely surprising, a quiet and calm man who dismisses Roderigo’s insult and even avoids the prospect of a conflict.