I. Puritan New England was a place filled with strict laws and an unbreakable moral code. A. Hester and Dimmesdale's secret passion is an example of rebellion to this moral code. 1. Hester and Dimmesdale are lovers in their own eyes, but in the eyes of the townspeople they...

The Scarlet Letter involves many characters that go through several changes during the course of the story. In particular, the young minister Dimmesdale, who commits adultery with Hester, greatly changes. He is the moral blossom of the book, the character that makes the most progress for the better....

Romanticism is categorized as "a preference for simplicity and naturalness, a love of plain feelings and truth to common place reality, especially as found in natural scenes". Nathaniel Hawthorne was an anti-transcendentalist and believed in the dark side of man, hence his dark romant...

The moral dilemma's presented in The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible are predicaments distinctly connected to early American society. The Puritan church, America's first community forum and system of social organization, provided a strict rule of individual lifestyle that encompassed dai...

In Nathaniel Hawthorne\'s, The Scarlet Letter, life centers around a rigid Puritan society in which one is unable to indulge his or her innermost thoughts and secrets. Every human being needs the opportunity to express how he or she truly feels, otherwise, the emotion builds up until they become vol...

A sin can be defined as the act of breaking a Religious law or purpose. Morals and how someone is raised can factor into their views on a sin. Everyone has a conscience, which is the ability to recognize right and wrong. A sin severity varies by intent, and results of the commented act. Some sins ar...

True redemption of sin comes from suffering. When a person goes against what they judge as wrong, the only way to be freed of the guilt that their actions have caused is to feel the pain emotionally from the guilt of their sin. The guilt they feel on the inside and the shame they have to face others...

The Scarlet Letter displays that guilt is venomous and destructive, even more so than physical injuries. Nathaniel Hawthorne wanted to show the result of hiding one's sins and the destructiveness of secrecy and deception. In the story, Dimmesdale is consumed by his feelings of guilt, and in the...

In the 17th century, political and religious persecution in England led to the pilgrimage of Puritans to America. Their settlements reflected on forms of theocracy to completely unify church and state. All laws resulted solely from the Bible and were highly punishable if convicted. Nathaniel Hawthor...

Arthur Dimmesdale of Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and Ethan Frome, the main character of Wharton's classic Ethan Frome, though separated by over a century of time, find themselves in remarkably similar situations--a bleak existence, punctuated only be intermittent glimpses into a life that might have ...

Chillingworth's Desire Although Roger Chillingworth's zealous desire to seek out Hester's secret lover is justified, he crossed the boundary of human realm with his demonic sphere of soul possession. Hester, who is scared of him, asks, "Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the f...