Scarlet Letter Essays (Examples)

Scarlet Letter

Modern day movies rarely do justice for the classics. The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne falls into that category. Even Demi Moore could not meet the genius of the original writing. "Demi Moore plays the strong-willed Hester Prynne brilliantly, and Gary Oldman (I want to marry him) turns Reverend Dimmesdale into an extremely complex and passionate character. The love between Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale lasts throughout the movie with great intensity - all of it rooted in the one amazing love scene which leads to Prynne's pregnancy." (hen Love Becomes Sin) I loved reading The Scarlet Letter much more than the I did seeing the movie and this report is an attempt to explain why I think so highly of the written work.

Nathanial Hawthorne was a writer from Salem, Massachusetts where his famous home, the House of Seven Gables, still stands to this day. Surprisingly, Hawthorne…

Works Cited

Eagen, Jr., Ken. "The adulteress in the market-place: Hawthorne and The Scarlet Letter." Studies in the Novel 22 Mar. 1995.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Bantam Dell, 1850.

Savoy, Eric. "Filial duty": reading the patriarchal body in 'The Custom House." Studies in the Novel (12/22/1993).

Traister, Bryce. "The bureaucratic origins of The Scarlet Letter." Studies in American Fiction (2001).

Scarlett Letter

Review of the Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. Hawthorne has been canonized in many literary circles and is widely recognized as one of the most famous writers of American literature. He wrote The Scarlet Letter at the age of 46, at a time in which he lived with his wife in Concord, Massachusetts. Hawthorne belonged to the Transcendentalist school of writers, which included notable New England writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; this group of writers were less indebted to religion than was common at the time, and preferred to look toward nature and individual thought as sources of wisdom. By the time that The Scarlet Letter was written, Hawthorne was already a well-established writer. He had published his first novel in 1828, a full 22 years before The Scarlet Letter. In this regard, The Scarlet Letter…

The actual sins are thus not Hester's adultery, but the minister's cowardice and her former husband's plans of revenge. Society as a whole could not help, but act according to the laws one thought fit to protect it from destruction. The community was blind, but not nearly as guilty of sin as the two men in Hester's life. The narrator reminds the reader of the two most important things a new colony was first raising on its new founded ground: a prison and a cemetery. Death and punishment were the two tools that gave people a certainty and the power to believe in their future as a community. That is why, although they are guilty of hypocrisy and prejudice, they are having the excuse of being blinded by their struggle to keep their community alive at all costs.

Hester is the element that seemed to threaten the very existence of…

hen Hester is first alone with Chillingworth, for instance, and in several preceding descriptions, she appears to be undergoing a process of destruction herself. She is immensely ashamed, and very aware of the eyes that dart furtively towards the letter emblazoned on her chest; she is too weak to think straight when Chillingworth administers a medicine to Pearl that could, for all Hester knows, be poison, and she is far too weak to resist Chillingworth's insistence that she keep his secrets.

Hester is the first of the three major characters, however, to make a transition to a stronger and more secure position with herself and with her sin; she has clearly found an inner redemption long before the others. The reason for this is the same as the reason that she is the first, and for the bulk of the book the only, character to acknowledge her sin -- Pearl.…

Work Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Dover, 1994.

Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Moby-Dick" by Herman Melville, and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. Specifically, it compares and contraststhese three characters in relation to the evil that dominates them, indicate what the attitude of the author is regarding each one, discuss the source of their evil nature or acts, the nature of the evil deeds they commit, and the results of these evil designs.

It will also select the character that should be the most strongly condemned and fully justify why. Each of these novel's characters is dominated by the evil influence of another character, and each of them faces this domination in a different way. Each character grows stronger from this evil influence, and learns how to remove the evil influence from their lives.

Evil is present in all of these novels, and much of each novel's theme revolves around the age-old premise of good…

References

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Scarlet Letter." Bartleby.com. 2004. 6 April 2004.  http://www.bartleby.com/83/index.html 

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick Or, the Whale. New York: Hendricks House, 1952.

Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York P.F. Collier & Son Company, 1912.

There is no question that the letter has darkened her future. hen Hester and Dimmesdale are in the forest with Pearl, with see that light is associated with love and hope. e are told, "No golden light had ever been so precious as the gloom of this dark forest . . .Here seen only by her eyes, Arthur Dimmesdale, false to God and man, might be, for one moment true" (188). Goodness and light are associated with Pearl. e read that she is "very brightest little jet of flame that ever danced upon the earth" (95). In contrast, Chillingworth is associated with darkness. One of the most compelling scenes that demonstrates this is at the conclusion of the novel when we are told about the change that had taken place. Chillingworth looses his strength and energy and shriveled away, "like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun" (251).…

Work Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New Jersey: Watermill Classics. 1995.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter explores the method of public shaming as a form of legitimate legal sentencing. In the novel, Hester Prynne has an affair with Reverend Dimmesdale. Even though her husband has practically abandoned her and lives in another country, she is punished for what was in Puritan America considered a crime. The punishment reflects Puritanical values related to female sexuality, and reveals ways a patriarchal society controls women's choices by monitoring and controlling their private lives. Given private and domestic spheres were the only realms women had any degree of power, the control over women's sexuality in The Scarlett Letter shows how patriarchy becomes entrenched and immutable. Moreover, the use of public shaming to sentence Prynne serves an overarching function of social control. Religion, a core theme in The Scarlett Letter, is the vehicle of that social control and the law is also used to enforce and…

The only material similarity between Prynne's scarlet "badge" and Faith's pink ribbons is that both are made of cloth and adorn some type of clothing, i.e., Faith's ribbons are part of her cap while Prynne's "badge" is sewn into her dress as needlework.

The reader is first introduced to Prynne's "badge" in Chapter Two of the Scarlet Letter when she emerges from jail -- "On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread, appeared the letter a." Upon being led to her "place of punishment" for committing adultery with Arthur Dimmesdale, all eyes are immediately drawn to the scarlet "A" which "had the effect of a spell, taking (Hester) out of the ordinary relations with humanity and enclosing her in a sphere by herself" (ell, 163-164). Obviously, this scarlet emblem upon Hester's dress seems to emit a life…

Bibliography

Bell, Millicent, Ed. Nathaniel Hawthorne: Collected Novels and Short Stories. New York: The Library of America, 1983.

Richardson, Robert D., Jr. "Ralph Waldo Emerson." Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 59: "American Literary Critics and Scholars, 1800-1850." Ed. John W. Rathburn. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Research, Inc., 1987, 108-129.

Trace the development (or lack) of one of the major characters in the story, from beginning to end.

From the opening of The Scarlet Letter, when Hester Prynne stands alone on a scaffold, condemned by the Salem community, until the end when she stands with Arthur and Pearl on that same scaffold, Hester is a remarkably strong character. Unlike Arthur Dimmesdale, her partner in sin, who appears strong initially but weakens throughout the story, Hester grows even stronger as the story progresses. Hawthorne's early descriptions of Hester are of her physical beauty: she is . . . tall, with a figure of perfect elegance," with "dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine . . ." (Hawthorne, 1334). ithin Hester's proud, haughty bearing when we are first see her, we also glimpse traces of her rebellion and impetuousness (some of which become evident in Pearl), which,…

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Ed.

P. Lauter. Vol. 2. New York: Houghton, 2002. 2235-2386.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. The Norton Anthology American Literature. Eds. N.

Baym et al., 5th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton, 1998. 1306-1447.

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Hawthorne clearly stepped away from the Puritan ethic by consistently alluding to the existence of the earthly supernatural. Though this was a fear of the Puritans, clearly it was associated with Satan and possession of the living. In Hawthorne's works the supernatural was associated with less grand sources, such as those seen in Young Goodman Brown. (Hoeltje 39-40) Hawthorne allows his characters to explore concepts that would have been those deemed heretical within the Puritan settings of the works.

In The Birth-Mark, Hawthorne associates the active expulsion of character traits of humanity clearly results in the death of the whole.

The line of divergence in "The Birth Mark" is indicated by its name. e all have our birth-marks, -- traits of character, which may be temporarily suppressed, or relegated to the background, but which cannot be eradicated and are certain to reappear at unguarded moments, or on…

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel." The Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. 2004.

Emmett, Paul J. "Narrative Suppression: Sin, Secrecy and Subjectivity in "The Minister's Black Veil." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 25.1-2 (2004): 101+. Questia. 16 Jan. 2005  http://www.questia.com/ .

Gartner, Matthew. "The Scarlet Letter' and the Book of Esther: Scriptural Letter and Narrative Life." Studies in American Fiction 23.2 (1995): 131+. Questia. 16 Jan. 2005

The Widow and Miss Watson see nothing wrong with slavery in modern society, while Huck actually takes actions to end slavery by leading Jim to freedom and treating Jim like a human being.

6. "To be or not to be, that is the bare bodkin."

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Signet, 2002, p. 143.

The Shakespearean 'actors' Jim and Huck befriend are really charlatans, despite their pretence of learning. They cannot even quote William Shakespeare's Hamlet in his "To be or not to be" soliloquy correctly.

7. "He says anyone who doesn't understand the theorems of Euclid is an idiot."

McCourt, Frank. Angela's Ashes. New York: Scribner, 1999, p.151.

The references to Euclid show the disparity between what is taught in Frank's school by an ambitious teacher and the poverty and ignorance of the rest of the boy's life. It also shows the narrow-mindedness of the principal, who…

e cannot look to our circumstances for reasons to do anything wrong. Dimmesdale is no different from the young boy that grows up in an abusive household beating his wife and claiming that he is not responsible because of his environment.

Finally, Dimmesdale's suicide is the ultimate gesture of his weakness. He cannot be honest with those that assume to know him. He claims in these last moments that he withheld his "own heavy sin and miserable agony" (244) and now must let the truth be known. This is a brave move and it would have been even braver to live after confessing. Instead, he takes his own life. Many may assume that he took his own life because of grief and inner turmoil but it makes more sense to assume that he could not live with what he had done and he could not have lived with the kind…

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New Jersey: Watermill Classics. 1995.

It is difficult to imagine the kinds of unfair discrimination that was wrought against women, witches, and anyone else who did go along with the status quo. However, in inthrop's situation, the matter of survival was so acutely important that a strong-fisted rule was thought to be necessary.

He expresses, more than once, in the trial transcript his fears that the entire colonial civilization could fall over this one woman's outspoken beliefs. Banishment was the only appropriate punishment, since it would remove her from the small, sealed world of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and ensure that she could not sway peoples' minds toward this outrageous idea of grace.

It is almost comical to consider that now, in 2008, we see crowds of Christians waving their hands in the air to feel the grace of God, an experience they believe is attainable simply through their faith. This is the exact kind…

Works Cited

Ayto, John Dictionary of Word Origins, Arcade Publishing, New York: 1990.

Hawthorne, John the Scarlet Letter, Bantam Classics, New York: 1981

Kerber, Linda K. And Sherron DeHart Women's America, Refocusing the Past. Oxford University Press. New York: 1995

Young, Ralph, Ph.D. Dissent in America, the Voices That Shaped a Nation. Pearson/Longman, Publishers. New York: 2006

The deep, gloomy forest holds the key to the freedom of the people: here they learn to be themselves again. In the midst of nature, "the yellow leave will show no vestige of the white man's tread." (Hawthorne, (http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/scarletletter).oth writers belong to the transcendentalist movement and so their views resemble each other: Emerson's nature is a reflection of the human spirit, while Hawthorne's forest reveals people's true character.

ibliography

Emerson, R.W.: The American Scholar. Retrieved June 2007, at http://www.bartleby.com/5/101.html

Emerson, R.W.: Nature. Retrieved June 2007, at http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/emerson/nature-emerson-a.html#Chapter%20I

Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter. Retrieved June 2007, at http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/scarletletter

Taylor, Judd: Man Thinking: The Nature of Emerson's American Scholar, March 23, 1999. Retrieved June 2007, at http://www.geocities.com/fidelio1st/literature/theamericanscholar.htm

The Town vs. Nature in the Scarlet Letter. Retrieved June 2007, at http://www.studyworld.com/basementpapers/papers/stack34_6.html

Bibliography

Emerson, R.W.: The American Scholar. Retrieved June 2007, at  http://www.bartleby.com/5/101.html 

Emerson, R.W.: Nature. Retrieved June 2007, at http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/emerson/nature-emerson-a.html#Chapter%20I

Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter. Retrieved June 2007, at  http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/ scarletletter

Taylor, Judd: Man Thinking: The Nature of Emerson's American Scholar, March 23, 1999. Retrieved June 2007, at http://www.geocities.com/fidelio1st/literature/theamericanscholar.htm

Lawrence often compares the mechanistic world of industrialize Britain with the world of nature, and the fecundity and sexuality of the natural world is seen as distorted by the mechanistic world that has developed in this century. In such a comparison, Clifford is on the side of the industrial world, while Connie comes out on the side of the natural world. Yet, this is not what society wants women to be, and yet it is also the reason women were so restricted by society, because they were viewed as dangerous threats to the natural order because of their inherent sexuality.

In Lawrence's conception, living according to nature precludes the possibility of sin, though society may see the issue in a different light. hile one could apply this idea to Hester and Tess as well, their authors clearly do not view the issue in that way, though they do find their…

Works Cited

Benson, Larry D. The Riverside Chaucer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987.

Euripides. Ten Plays by Euripides. New York: Bantam, 1988.

Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles. London: Macmillan, 1953.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Boston: Bedford Books, 1991.

Hawthorne and Poe, both authors depict women who struggle and suffer at the hands of masculine stereotypes. In Hawthorne's "Rapaccini's Daughter" and The Scarlet Letter, and Poe's "Ligeia" the depiction of women characters illustrates each authors sensitivity to the plight of women in the 19th Century.

Considering that Nathaniel Hawthorne lived and wrote in the radical cultural milieu of Concord, Massachusetts, alongside such women's rights luminaries like Emerson, the Alcott sisters, and of course, Margaret Fuller, it is not surprising to find in his literary works a treatment of women that demonstrates, above all, an immense sensitivity to the plight of women struggling for freedom in a man's world. Yet In both "Rappaccini's Daughter" and The Scarlet Letter, published before and after the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, Hawthorne's women characters suffer because of masculine notions of feminine beauty and character.

In Rappaccini's Daughter" Hawthorne tells a stark tale of…

From a good soldier, he turns into a bad king. He becomes a man who believes the transparent lies of the witches who, along with the urging of his ambitious wife, motivated him to commit the murder of King Duncan.

Hamlet: Hamlet's depressed and uncompromising nature resonates with anyone who has ever been an adolescent. Hamlet is intensely critical of aspects of his society others take for granted, such as King Claudius' right to marry his brother's widow and Old Hamlet's suspect death. Hamlet's criticism can be harsh, and misogynistic as well as misanthropic, but he is an inspiring example for young readers. He urges readers and playgoers today to continually question the morality of their elders and betters, and strike out against the 'smile' or lie that hides the real truth about power in society.

The Scarlet Letter: Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter shows that the appearance of religion without…

American Lit

Definition of Modernism and Three Examples

Indeed, creating a true and solid definition of modernism is exceptionally difficult, and even most of the more scholarly critical accounts of the so-called modernist movement tend to divide the category into more or less two different movements, being what is known as "high modernism," which reflected the erudition and scholarly experimentalism of Eliot, Joyce, and Pound, and the so-called "low modernism" of later American practitioners, such as William Carlos Williams. Nonetheless, despite the problems of reification involved with such a task, I will attempt to invoke a definitions of at least some traits of modernism, as culled from the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics:

First, [in modernism] "realization" had to replace description, so that instead of copying the external world the work could render it in an image insisting on its own forms of reality... [and] Second, the poets develop…

Bibliography

Preminger, Alex and Brogan T.V.F. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1993.

The various places he stops represent certain alternative futures, and the brothel promises one of pleasure. His ability to resist it -- whether through morality or lack of money -- and continue on his journey is indicative of the revolutionary spirit. The fact that he keeps moving, and keeps searching in new places, matched the movement of the revolution and indeed of the country since then as it goes through its great democratic experiment.

Hawthorne's story is very enjoyable just as a piece of fiction. It is also an interesting historical piece, describing the feel of life in pre-Revolutionary America and the different opinions at various levels of society. These things are brought out in the setting perhaps more than in any other single element of the story. Time and place are incredibly essential to this story; the story is, in fact, about the changing political setting of the American…

Hester Prynne: Courage and Integrity Incarnate
The novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the struggle of Hester Prynne in attempting to live by the standards set by her own internal guidelines. This creates a great deal of conflict as she is forced to confront the standards set by the Puritan society of Colonial America for what is considered decent behavior. At the opening of the book, so much has already happened: Hester Prynne’s husband (Roger Chillingworth) was shipwrecked and captured by native people—many thought he had unfortunately perished. The town’s religious leader Arthur Dimmesdale offers Hester an understanding ear and shoulder to cry on, but this leads to an affair that results in the birth of Hester’s daughter Pearl, born out of wedlock. Thus, it is very revelatory about these townspeople that they offer Hester very little understanding for the ways that she has suffered. Instead she is…

Humor in Literature

American literature is unique in that the attitudes of the works tend to reflect the spirit of the nation and of her citizens. One of the trademarks of American literature is that authors display a tone that can be very serious, but that also can be interpreted as humorous. hereas texts from other cultures are usually more concerned with message and in presenting that message in a dry, even stoic manner, American literature is uniquely capable of mixing the honest and the humorous. Even in the most serious and earnest stories, the sensibility of American humor can be detected. Of course, there are different types of humor. Some stories are flat-out ridiculous and make the reader laugh. Other stories are more sarcastic in their approach to humor and the funny moments have to be analyzed to be better understood. Still other tales are anecdotal and function as…

Works Cited:

Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1986). The Scarlet Letter. Bantam: New York, NY.

Irving, Washington (1917). "Rip Van Winkle." Rip Van Winkle and the Legend of Sleepy

Hollow. Harvard.

Poe, Edgar Allen (1844). http://www.amlit.com/twentyss/chap18.html

Chillingworth from the Scarlet Letter with Claggart from Billy Budd

erman Mellville admired Nathaniel awthorne and presented him as the lucky strike of faith for the American literary world. According to Melville, the genius of Shakespeare had found a worthy follower in awthorne. The "villains" in Melville's "Billy Bud" and awthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" are characters that challenge the reader into questioning the deeply ingrained and often pain relieving belief that originally there is something good in every human being. They both embody pure evil in human form, with or without an obvious motivation.

In his "Introduction" to the book "Billy Bud," Cyrus R. K. Patell is placing an emphasis on the importance of the influence Nathaniel awthorne's writings had on erman Melville's literary style and more importantly, on his entire artistic vision. Not surprisingly, the two authors created characters that will forever stand as works of art produced in…

Hawthorne, N. The Scarlet Letter. Simon and Schuster,

2004

Patell, C.R.K. Introduction to Billy Bud, Sailor, 2015.

Religion features prominently as a theme in literature. In fact, some of the earliest works of literature are rooted in their religious and cultural traditions, including the ancient literatures of the Middle East and Mesopotamia.

As the role of religion in society changed, so too did the role of religion in literature.

Modern literature, including work by Nathaniel Hawthorne, often offers scathing critiques of religion, whereas postmodern literature allows religion to play a more complex role in shaping individual identity.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's he Scarlett Letter heavily criticizes the role of religion in a patriarchal society, whereas Yann Martel's Life of Pi presents religion more as a subjective phenomenon, revealing an important cultural shift from religion to spirituality.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's he Scarlett Letter, the author shows how religion becomes a tool of social oppression and political control.

A. Hawthorne shows that religious authorities are hypocritical, and especially fundamentalists, as the…

This article offers some interesting background information on Yann Martel as an author, showing that the author's secular background proves that Life of Pi is making a clear statement about the difference between religion and spirituality. Religion is an outmoded social institution, whereas spirituality remains central to the human experience. The character of Pi illustrates the similarities between faith in God and faith in one's own ability to succeed, and through the motif of the journey also shows that "a journey toward enlightenment" can be stripped of any religious or even cultural context (Stephens 41).

Stratton, Florence. "Hollow at the core": Deconstructing Yann Martel's Life of Pi" SCI/ELC, Vol, 29, No. 2, 2004. Retrieved online:  https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/SCL/article/view/12746/13690 

This article critiques Yann Martel's novel by showing that the protagonist fails to actually show any growth, while also noting that the author takes a firm postmodern stance on the nature of truth or reality. The author points out that Life of Pi in part addresses the question of objective reality and whether a human being can even determine whether there is any objective reality, a core feature of postmodernism in general. This article offers a refreshing counterpoint to the other articles about Life of Pi.

In conclusion, these works all illustrate the changing role of women in 19th century society. At the beginning of the century, women's work was inside the home and raising a family. By the end of the century, Victorian women were attempting to add meaning and fulfillment to their lives. Women in this country were attempting to gain the right to vote, they were forming women's groups and societies, and women like Gilman, Chopin, Wollstonecraft Shelley, and others, were attempting to create their own writing careers, allowing them to be at least partially autonomous and independent. They write of women's struggles for equality and understanding with great knowledge, skill, and perception. They also write of the realities of being a woman in the 19th century. For the most part, women's lives were unfulfilled and controlled by the men around them.

eferences

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening, and Other Stories. Ed. Knights, Pamela.…

References

Chopin, Kate. The Awakening, and Other Stories. Ed. Knights, Pamela. Oxford: Oxford University, 2000.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wall-Paper." The Online Archive of Nineteenth-Century U.S. Women's Writings. Ed. Glynis Carr. Fall 1999. 9 May 2008. http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/gcarr/19cUSWW/CPG/TYW.html

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, ed. George Parsons Lathrop (Riverside Edition), 12 vols. Boston, 1890.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein or, the Modern Prometheus. New York: Collier Books, 1961.

John Updike & Nathaniel Hawthorne

John Updike and Nathaniel Hawthorne are two of the most well-known writers to have contributed to the body of American Literature. Updike, the more recent writer of the two, has been considered one of America's most prestigious writers, often honored by collegiate bodies and authoritative figures. Likewise, Nathaniel Hawthorne in his time was recognized and respected, having come from a background commanding some respect. Both authors however, during their life struggled with negative issues; Updike for example struggled with separation and health problems that plagued him since he was a child. Hawthorne struggled with his ancestry who embodied a rigid Puritanical belief system, and also struggled with the poverty of his family that he was never quite able to overcome during his lifetime.

The works of both Updike and Hawthorne tend to have some autobiographical notes. Each author draws from experiences within their own lives.…

Works Cited:

Jalic, LLC. "Nathaniel Hawthorne." Jalic, LLC. (2004). {Online} Available:



De Bellis, Jack. "The John Updike Encyclopedia." Greenwood Press, Westport: 2000.

Farr, J. "Haunted Hawthorne." The Wilson Quarterly, Vol. 28, winter 2004.

The information reviewed during the course of this study has clearly illustrated that the precise meaning of the 'F' word is subject to great fluctuation and shift in applied meaning over a period of time and that meanings may experience the affect of cultural shifts in terms of the applied meaning of words such as the 'F' word. The literature reviewed in this study clearly demonstrated that the basic roots of the 'F' word can be found across a range of linguistic derivations being accredited by some to the Germanic Areal linguistics by other to the Viking heritage or Indo-European roots. While this word is one of the three hundred most often used words in the English language, it wasn't until recent decades that this word has been published in reference books and dictionaries in the actual spelled out form of the 'F' word attributed to the lack of ease…

Bibliography

Wilton, David (2004) Word Myths - Oxford University Press, United States, 2004. Online Google Scholar Books available at  http://books.google.com/books?id=cp0r3aa8EM8C&dq=word+origin+ *****

The Roots of English: A Reader's Handbook of Word Origin" (Times, 1989) in Dictionary of Word Origin (1990) Ayto, John - New York: Arcade Publishing 1990.

Wajnryb, Ruth (2005) Expletive Deleted: A Good Look at Bad Language - Simon and Schuster. Language Arts & Disciplines/Linguistics. 2005.

O'Donnell, Brendan (2001) the Anatomy of a Four Letter Word 2001 Mar 21. In Wickerham, Josh: This Postmodern World - the Michigan Daily.

Roots of the Feeling of Moral Superiority in the U.S.

The United States has been criticized in recent years for assuming an air of moral superiority and for trying to impose their opinions on the rest of the world. Even when the tragedy of September 11 happened, some countries were happy to see America suffer. hy would they hate us? Partly it might be because they envy the wealth and freedom that American citizens have. It is also because they think Americans believe they are always in the right, (my country, right or wrong). Did this attitude emerge with the founding fathers? e can see American attitudes to ourselves and also to other countries in non-fiction and fiction of the first two centuries, from the 1770's to the 1970's.

In "Common Sense," 1776, Thomas Paine declared "Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America...The Almighty hath implanted in us these inextinguishable…

Works Cited

The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. 1, 5th ed. Nina Baym

De Crevecoeur, J. Hector St. John. Letters From An American Farmer. New York, Fox, Duffield, 1904. www.xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/CREV/letter04.html.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York, W.W. Norton and Company, 1967.

Paine, Thomas. "Common Sense" and "Epistle to Quakers." 1776. New York, Bartleby.com, 1999. http:www.bartleby.com/133/

Blood by Suzan-Lori Sparks expands on the main theme of society's unfair disregard for its people of low condition in general, for women, and for adulterers. Hester La Negrita, the protagonist, is an African-American woman who struggles to survive in poverty along with her five base-born children. The family's outcast status is portrayed as a direct inducer and accelerator of emotional suffering, poverty, lack of education, and sexual exploitation.

(A) From a structural perspective, In the Blood is constructed in two acts and nine scenes, employing a linear plotline (ush, 2005). In this sense, the play debuts with the equilibrium of Hester striving to provide for her children in meager conditions, the inciting incident represented by the suggestion to seek help from the available former lovers and fathers of her children, the major dramatic question of whether or not she will attain it, the developing action as Hester approaches everend…

References

Bailin, D. (2006). "Our Kind: Albee's Animals in Seascape and the Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia?." The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Vol. 18, No. 1.

Putnam, R.D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Rush, D. (2005). A Student Guide to Play Analysis. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois Printing Press.

Even in Sedgwick's iconoclastic, homoerotic reading, however, it is possible to argue that the moral of The Beast in the Jungle is the same: living in fear of disaster leads to a life without love, whether life is spent separating one's self from others because of fear of losing them, or fear of social censure. The story takes the form of a psychological narrative more than a conventional marriage plot: since it is about a man opting out of conventional social norms, rather than engaging in them. It features Marcher deciding to ignore May's obliquely expressed interest, a few dinners enjoyed by the two of them, and then her eventual demise. Marcher's "imaginative concrete image" of the beast, a metaphor made real, is the most dramatic aspect of the novel (Gottschalk 43).

hile it is possible to use the still-unknown reasons for James' unmarried existence to interpret The Beast in…

Works Cited

Gottschalk, Jane. "The Continuity of American Letters in "The Scarlet Letter" and "The Beast in the Jungle." Wisconsin Studies in Literature, (1967): 39-45. [May 25, 2011]

 http://eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED021826.pdf 

James, Henry. The Beast in the Jungle. CreateSpace, 2002.

Sedgwick, Eve K. "The Beast in the Closet." From The Masculinity Studies Reader.

Oath

when and where does this story take place? The story takes place in a fictional town called Hyde River, a mining town in Clark County, which is in the Pacific Northwest. The time in which it takes place is not specifically mentioned but it would appear to be recently, perhaps in the 1980s.

list two characters that are important in the novel and describe each one.

Harold Bly is basically the local power broker in the town; he is the authority and he knows the secret. Bly is owner of the mining company in Hyde River and he is the one who has the ability to control the fearful and mysterious dragon. He is a strong man who can be brutally vicious when he is angry; at the beginning of the novel is very angry at his wife Maggie for having an affair and he literally threw her into…

Works Cited

Peretti, Frank. (1995). The Oath. Dallas, TX: Word Publishing.

Evolution of Prison Life

hat were prisons like, how were prisoners treated and classified through American history -- including prison environments in the last few years? This paper delves into those topics and provides the available literature that validates the points to be made in this essay.

The History of Prisons and Prisoner Life in America

According to author and Professor Jack Lynch, prisons were among the very first public buildings when settlers began to populate and develop the New orld. And there were few long-term punishments that were meted out, and among those were individuals convicted of being "debtors" (Lynch, 2008). The problem with putting the poor in prison because they couldn't pay their debts was that "…they could never earn the money they owed"; but it wasn't until the 1830s that the U.S. began to "…abolish debtor's prisons" (Lynch, 3). Instead of being imprisoned, convicted criminals were forced…

Works Cited

American Civil Liberties Union. (2013). Prison Conditions. Retrieved March 19, 2014, from  https://www.aclu.org .

Austin, J., and Hardyman, P.L. (2004). Objective Prison Classification: A Guide for Correctional Agencies. U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved March 19, 2014, from http://www.jfa-associates.com.

Lynch, J. (2008). Cruel and Unusual Prisons and Prison Reform. History.org. Colonial Williamsburg. Retrieved March 19, 2014, from  http://www.history.org .

Schwirtz, M. (2014). Mental Illness and Violence Rise at a Vast Jail. The New York Times.

But there is ample evidence, as documented in our recent report that unfettered access to registries can and does lead to extensive harassment and sometimes violence against former offenders (Fellner, 2007).

Highly publicized cases that deal with the abduction, rape, abuse, and murder of young children have led federal and state governments to introduce new laws that require stricter punishments, requirements, and prohibitions for sex offenders. Increasingly rigorous and over-inclusive necessities for sex offenders are almost unanimously accepted and easy for legislators and politicians to support because they are popular among the general public. As Congress passes law after law cracking down on sex offenders, experts and officials question whether the requirements of those acts even work to achieve the goals of legislators (Farley, 2008).

The most recent act, the Adam Walsh Act (AWA), raises many questions as Congress again expands punishments and requirements of sex offenders. The AWA contains…

References

Farley, Laura Geer. (2008). The Adam Walsh Act: The Scarlet Letter of the Twenty-First Century. Retrieved May 28, 2009, from Web site:

 http://washburnlaw.edu/wlj/47-2/articles/geerfarley-lara.pdf 

Fellner, Jamie. (2007). The wrong sex offender laws. Retrieved May 28, 2009, from Los Angels

Times Web site:  http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/18/news/oe-fellner18

The impossibility of his situation is made poignant through characters like Eto Minato, a soldier who said "Yes" to service in the U.S. Armed Forces; Bull, another veteran of II; and Taro, Ichiro's own brother. The fact of Ichiro receiving bitter verbal and physical assaults on his body and his identity indicates an important point in Okada's book: these individuals have whole-heartedly accepted the twisted social standards established by the dominant Caucasian society.

If your cultural brethren, other Japanese-Americans you own age, have bought into the racism of the white society, and have begun to practice that hatefulness and bigotry, there is nowhere to hide and no shelter is available. Again, it's impossible now for Ichiro to obtain membership in any particular society. His mother is of no help to his crisis because she is a fanatic Japanese patriot, clinging to the pathetic notion that the Japanese had won the…

Works Cited

Okada, John. No-No Boy. San Francisco: Combined Asian-American Resources Project,

In conclusion, Edgar Allen Poe was the master of Gothic horror fiction, and his stories are still popular today because of his abilities. Poe was not above parody and humor, however, and this tale shows that. It is so ghastly that it gently pokes fun at the entire genre of horror fiction, and it is so unbelievable it remains as one of his most memorable tales. "The Fall of the House of Usher" gives the reader much more than a glimpse into a macabre family and their estate. It gives the reader a true taste of Gothic fiction as it appeared at the time, and the elements of the story combine to form the perfect testament to the genre, a parody of everything it stood for and attempted to create.

eferences

Boyd, Molly. "The Fall of the House of Usher,' Simms's Castle Dismal, and the Scarlet Letter: Literary Interconnections." Studies…

References

Boyd, Molly. "The Fall of the House of Usher,' Simms's Castle Dismal, and the Scarlet Letter: Literary Interconnections." Studies in the Novel 35.2 (2003): 231+.

Hustis, Harriet. "Reading Encrypted but Persistent": The Gothic of Reading and Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher'." Studies in American Fiction 27.1 (1999): 3.

Peeples, Scott. "11 Poe's 'Constructiveness' and 'The Fall of the House of Usher'." The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 178-188.

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Fall of the House of Usher." Online-Literature.com. 2008. 24 Nov. 2008.  http://www.online-literature.com/poe/31/

.." And "The probability that my peers would undertake the same action is...." It is the difference in the responses given to these two questions, as captured on a seven point Likert scale, that is the measure of the social desirability response bias. (Tyson: 1992; Cohen et al.: 1995, 1996, 2001).

Many studies have been done on the role and correlation between moral development and ethical decision making as it applies to various professionals. A majority of these research studies have found that such things as gender, education, age and taking ethics courses in school have some affect on one's moral reasoning developments (Armstrong: 1993; Elm, Kennedy & Lawton: 2001; Jones & Hiltebeitel: 1995; Ponemon & Glazer: 1990; Shaub: 1994). However, many studies have also found exactly the opposite, in that no significant relationship exists. (Ma & Chan: 1987; Rogers & Smith: 2001; Thorne, Massey & Magnan: 2003).

Studies have…

Weber, J., & Glyptis, S.M. (2000). Measuring the impact of a business ethics course and community service experience on students' values and opinions. Teaching Business Ethics, 4, 341-358.

Weber, J., & Green, S. (1991). Principled Moral Reasoning: Is it a Viable Approach to Promote Ethical Integrity? Journal of Business Ethics, 10(5), 325-333.

Wynd, W.R., & Mager, J. (1989). The business and society course: Does it change student attitudes? Journal of Business Ethics, 8(6), 486-491.

Short story -- A brief story where the plot drives the narrative, substantially shorter than a novel. Example: "Hills like White Elephants," by Ernest Hemingway.

Allusion -- A casual reference in one literary work to a person, place, event, or another piece of literature, often without explicit identification. It is used to establish a tone, create an indirect association, create contrast, make an unusual juxtaposition, or bring the reader into a world of references outside the limitations of the story itself. Example: "The Wasteland" by T.S. Eliot alludes to "Paradise Lost" by John Milton.

epetition -- The repeating of a word or phrase or rhythm within a piece of literature to add emphasis. Example: The story of Agamemnon in The Odyssey by Homer.

Blank verse -- Unrhymed lines of ten syllables each with the even-numbered syllables bearing the accents, most closing resembling the natural rhythms of English speech. Example: "The…

References:

Wheeler, Dr. L. Kip. "Literary Terms and Definitions." Web.

"Word List of Literary and Grammar Terms." Web.

Teaching classic literature as the focus of a language curriculum for high school is an issue that has enjoyed considerable attention. ome critics feel that there is little purpose in focusing on ancient works of literature when attempting to cultivate a love of reading in children. Others again feel that an important part of human history and culture is lost when these works are ignored. According to the latter group, the way in which literature is taught determined whether it is useful or not, rather than the content of the literature as such. An argument stemming from the same basis relates to some negativity towards the way in which classics are taught. ome critics claim that authors such as hakespeare are being used to further dogmatic political goals. These views will be examined to determine whether using the classics as a focus for language education is a valid educational tool.…

Sources

Cantor, Paul A. "Shakespeare-"for all time"? - politicizing the teaching of Shakespeare's works." In Public Interest, Winter 2004. The National Affairs, 2004.

Donelson, Ken. "The Student's Right to Read."  http://www.ncte.org/about/over/positions/category/cens/107616.htm 

Kern, Andrew. "Teaching Classical Literature Classically." Memoria Press, 2004.  http://www.memoriapress.com/articles/classicallit.html 

La Vigne, Michelle. "Firing the Canon: Teaching Literature in Secondary Schools." Notes from the Hartland, 2004.

Alcohol

How effective has the legal prohibition of alcohol been in controlling crime? A recent Department of Justice Report (U.S. Department of Justice) said that alcohol was a factor in 40% of all violent crimes and accounted for 40.9% of all traffic fatalities in the U.S.A. In the last decade. ut these figures were 34% and 29%, respectively, lower than those of the previous decade. The Report further stated that arrests conducted for driving under the influence of alcohol correspondingly declined and attributed this to the establishment of the legal and uniform drinking age in the early 1980s.

Elucidating, the Report said that, approximately 3 million violent crimes occurred each year in that decade where the offenders were drinking at the time. And although arrests were made in every age group, those made on offenders below 21 notably decreased. The rate of intoxication in fatal accidents, it said, likewise went…

Bibliography

1. Abbe, Winfield. Toughening Liquor Laws Will Do Little to Sober Our Drunk Culture.

Athens Banner Herald, February 2002. (accessed 25:03:03). http://www.*****/stories/022202/let_letter4.shtml

2. Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcohol. (accessed 25:03:03). http://soc.qc.edu/aa/aager.html

3. Davis, George. Why Crime? Action Sunshine Coast Crime Prevention Program. Crime Prevention through Community Building, 2000. (accessed 25:03:03).  http://www.suncoastcentral.com/crimeprevention

Public Health Study on Implications and Ethics of Syphilis

Reverby, Susan. (2003) Tuskegee's Truths: Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Studies on Social Medicine.

One of the most infamous actions (or non-actions) in American medicine was that of the Tuskegee Study of this century. The U.S. Public Health Service, on behalf of the U.S. government, observed the effects of advanced and untreated syphilis on four hundred poor black Alabama men. The experiment lasted until 1972.

How could this have occurred? The reasons are twofold -- the perception of syphilis as an illness and the rampant racism prevalent in America at the time. One of the most culturally and politically significant illnesses in human history has been that of syphilis. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease that has been blamed for taking some of the greatest minds that ever lived, including Mozart's, as well as many other ordinary individuals. It has been…