Impure Puritans in The Scarlet Letter
In a world where society is disorganized, unhappy, and chaotic, it
can be extremely difficult to provide an honest, and just law system. As a
result, in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, people use their
religion (Puritan), as judge, jury, and executioner. For some people, it
can be very troublesome to live a normal life when you are surrounded by
biased and chauvinistic men and women. In this story, Hester Prynne is a
victim of her religion, and her fellow townsfolk.
Throughout the book, Hawthorne writes about the townspeople and how
they act and behave towards each other, Hester, and life in general. The
novel starts with Hester walking towards the town scaffold to be seen for
public display, because she committed the crime of adultery.
A lane was forthwith opened through the crowd of spectators.
Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-
browed men and unkindly visaged women, Hester Pyrnne set forth towards the
place appointed for her punishment. A crowd of eager and curious
schoolboys, understanding little of the matter in hand except that it gave
them a half-holiday, ran before her progress, turning their heads
continually to stare into her face, and at the wink-ing baby in her arms,
and at the ignominious letter on her breast. P. 52, 53
As this is happening, all the people see is the crime that Hester
committed, not the person behind it. They do not take into consideration,
that the crime itself, is not as evil as they make it out to be. Hawthorne
describes it as enjoyable to the spectators, by showing the children watch
her and laugh as she makes her way to the scaffold. It's as though the
people of the Puritan religion are heartless, ruthless, cold blooded, and
that what is going on, is considered fun.
Aside from forcing Hester to stand on the scaffold, they make her
knit an "A" onto her chest. The "A" symbolizes adultery. The plan was for
people to look upon this symbol, pity her, and make Hester feel deprived of
humanity. Instead of knitting a simple "A", Hester designs a very complex
and elaborate one. The reaction from the people shows how evil some of
For a short time Janie shared her life with her betrothed husband Logan Killicks. She desperately tried to become her new pseudo identity, to conform to the perfect "housewife" persona. Trying to make a marriage work that couldn't survive without love, love that Janie didn't have for Logan. Time and again Janie referred to love and her life in reference to nature, "Ah wants things sweet wid mah marriage lak when you sit under a pear tree and think... She often spoke to falling seeds and said Ah hope you fall on soft grounds... She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether"(24 - 25). Logan had blown out the hope in Janie's heart for any real love; she experienced the death of the childish imagery that life isn't a fairytale, her first dose of reality encountered and it tasted sour.
Janie’s first attempt at love does not turn out quite like she hopes. Her grandmother forces her into marrying Logan Killicks. As the year passes, Janie grows unhappy and miserable. By pure fate, Janie meets Joe Starks and immediately lusts after him. With the knowledge of being wrong and expecting to be ridiculed, she leaves Logan and runs off with Joe to start a new marriage. This is the first time that Janie does what she wants in her search of happiness: “Even if Joe was not waiting for her, the change was bound to do her good…From now on until death she was going to have flower dust and springtime sprinkled over everything” (32). Janie’s new outlook on life, although somewhat shadowed by blind love, will keep her satisfied momentarily, but soon she will return to the loneliness she is running from.
...yway. How can what Britain did be considered good for India? It can’t. At least, not if India’s value is in it’s people. The British did however bring peace to a nation collapsing on itself. And provided India with ‘proper’ education and standards. Communication, transport, industrialization, sanitation all improved and slavery, internal relations conflicts and unacceptable practices all ceased. So Britain’s rule could also be considered the best thing to happen to India. If India’s value were instead measured by western standards considering India before British rule in comparison to after. Everything has it’s price, all that can be truly verified is that British imperialism's impact on India was both positive and negative. It just depends from which side you choose to view it, the colonizers or the colony.
Life as a human is dictated by an inborn hunger or purpose, and people, in general, will act on this hunger for their own personal gain in their individual ways. This hunger, be it for wealth, land, love, power, revenge, or pride, can, and will be the undoing or failing of all mankind as Miller so clearly points out in his play 'The Crucible';. This essay will explore the motives of characters within the play and even the motives of Arthur Miller himself and therefore show how conflict stems from certain recognisable human failings including those mentioned above, fear, and hysteria.
In the end, Janie found herself being defined by other people, so to say Logan, Joe, and Tea Cake. During her marriage to Logan, Janie is viewed as a spoiled and non-hard working girl that needs to learn what it means to make a living. In her marriage to Joe, Janie is only needed for her outward appearance for him to define as his possession; never did he consult her about what she wanted. In both of these relationships she was forced to be something that she was not. Once Tea Cake came along everything had changed; going from following another man’s orders to being able to live a fun-loving life. Throughout the time she spends with him, finally free from being defined by someone else, Janie Crawford discovers who she is and what love is.
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, had a large influence of a very popular religion during the 17th century, known as Puritanism. The Oxford Encyclopedia defines Puritanism as “religious sensibility centered around conservation” (?). The reason behind many people traveling to America during the 1600s from England was only for one specific reason: religious freedom (Joselit). “For leaving England for what would become New England, the Puritans were not seeking economic opportunity and security for themselves and their families. They were on a religious mission or, what later became known in Puritan circle as an “errand into the wilderness””(Joselit, 21). The first set of Puritans came to America in 1620, and started a colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts. By the 1640s, there were over twenty-five thousand English settlers in New England. The group of Puritans that settled in the 1630s lived in an area that they named the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which is present day Boston. This is where the setting of The Scarlet Letter takes place (Joselit).
Hawthorne depicts the social repression of the society in the 17th Century, which involved the use of psychic repression to ensure control over the subjects. The law prohibited things that were perfectly fictitious about people’s instincts and desire in order to persuade them into believing that they had intentions consistent with the restricted fiction. As a result, the law is able to achieve the intention to make the unconscious guilty. An example of psychic repression is the casual plot of Hester‘s disobedience and obedience between the transcendental law of erotic aspirations and the law of marriage with its own sanctification. Further, Hawthorne suggests that sin was one of the fundamental issues of Puritanism. It was a social aspect that
There is no doubt that British imperialism had a large impact on India. India, having previously been an group of independent and semi-independent princedoms and territories, underwent great change under British administration. Originally intended to consolidate their hold on India by establishing a population that spoke the same language as their rulers, the British decision in the 1830s to educate Indians in a Western fashion, with English as the language of instruction, was the beginning of a chain of events, including a rise in Indian nationalism, that led to Indian resentment of British imperialism and ultimately to the loss of British control over India.
Authors often have underlying reasons for giving their stories certain themes or settings. Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, The Crucible, is a work of art inspired by actual events as a response to political and moral issues. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, The Crucible proves to have its roots in events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as the activities of the House Un-American Committee and the “Red Scare.” Though the play provides an accurate account of the Salem witch trials, its real achievement lies in the many important issues of Miller’s time that it dealswith.
The Crucible mocks the way society deals with justice. Salem is torn apart, due to the extent of Abigail's imagination and power. It shows the bias of opinions, as it was shown in the court, and how people tend to choose outcomes that suit them. In the end, injustice thrived upon the souls of the community, leaving many innocent people dead. Justice did not prevail, as the heart behind the case, John Proctor preferred to keep his self-respect and integrity, than live a life of lies.
The play “The Crucible” is an allegory for the McCarthyism hysteria that occurred in the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s. Arthur Miller’s play “the crucible” and the McCarthyism era demonstrates how fear can begin conflict. The term McCarthyism has come to mean “the practice of making accusations of disloyalty”, which is the basis of the Salem witch trials presented in Arthur Miller’s play. The fear that the trials generate leads to the internal and external conflicts that some of the characters are faced with, in the play. The town’s people fear the consequences of admitting their displeasure of the trials and the character of John Proctor faces the same external conflict, but also his own internal conflict. The trials begin due to Abigail and her friends fearing the consequences of their defiance of Salem’s puritan society.
The Puritan society was extremely restricting. They had strict laws and rules, and harsh punishments for even the smallest of misdemeanors. They lived with only the bare necessities and discouraged uniqueness or boldness. As a Romantic writer, with beliefs the complete opposite of the Puritans, Nathaniel Hawthorne was very critical of the Puritan’s strict society. In the allegorical novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the characters of Hester Prynne, Reverend Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth order to convey the central moral of rejecting societal ideals and acting upon one 's own desires and emotions.
British imperialism on India had many positive and negative affects on both the mother country, Britain and the colony, India. Many people would argue which effects were more prominent in these countries and some would agree that they were equal. But in both cases there were actually both.
The play, The Crucible, is a fireball of guilt, evil, and good compiled into one magnification. It is a play with tremendous feelings, with many inside twists hidden in the archives of the true story. It is a play with emotional feelings; feelings of anger, hate, and evil, yet also feelings of goodness, and pureness. Undeniably, The Crucible is a play illustrating good versus evil. The principal characters, Abigail Williams, John Proctor, Ann Putnam and Marry Warren all contain within them elements of good and evil.
Nathaniel Hawthorne brings to The Scarlet Letter a notion of sin and guilt that seems to stem from his experience and knowledge of Puritan theology and religious practice. In "The Custom House" Hawthorne communicates his apprehension for the persecutory impulses of his ancestors who "have mingled their earthly substance with the soil, until no small portion of it must necessarily be akin to the moral frame wherewith, for a little while, I walk the streets" (1309). It is evident that his attempt to distance himself from those figures of his past suggests that he criticizes the cold and inflexible Calvinistic theology of the Puritans, which was cruelly carried out by his ancestors. And although he sees their actions with contempt, he seem to carry psychological guilt for the "persecuting spirit" that transpired for more than one generation: "At all events, I, the present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them -as I have heard...may be now and henceforth removed" (1310).