Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Literary criticism the scarlet letter
Literary divices in the Scarlet Letter
Rhetoric in Shakespeare's Othello
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Literary criticism the scarlet letter
It’s 6:30 a.m. and the alarm clock begins to ring. I get up and get ready for school. I arrive at school and see that everyone is happy and talkative. I feel normal, not really willing to talk or even smile. I feel very different from others. I hardly talk and I just don’t feel like myself at school. Once the bell rings to go home, I burst out the doors and out to be myself again. I’m two completely different people. At school, I’m just a regular serious kid. When I get home, that’s where the party begins and when I am able to become myself again. I get pumped up at my house and I start screaming, dancing, singing, or jumping around. This is the real me. I can’t really explain why I can’t be myself at school too. I’m just two completely different people. With this I can relate to The Epilogue in “The Tempest” and to The Custom House in “The Scarlet Letter”. Both “The Tempest” and “The Scarlet Letter” have dual personas. The passages reveal their differences in the author’s dual purposes through the use of some rhetorical devices.
Some of the rhetorical devices that reveal the differences in the author’s purpose is diction. In The Epilogue of “The Tempest”, Shakespeare uses a lot of effective words. Shakespeare used words such as “confined” to tell us that Prospero was trapped in the island and he doesn’t want to go back to Naples. He also uses words like “release me from my bands”. He means that with our help we should release him with our applause. These are some examples of the diction that Shakespeare uses. Shakespeare’ s diction is a very important part of the play. For The Custom House Nathaniel Hawthorne uses formal diction. It is very formal because he uses words such as “truculency” and “vixenly”. He uses many formal wor...
... middle of paper ...
...h the use of some rhetorical devices. The passages reveal the differences in the author’s dual purposes through the use of diction, tone, and personas. The most interesting of these three rhetorical devices was persona. It’s really interesting when a writer like Shakespeare writes a story or play using other characters and at the same time is telling his own personal life. The same goes for Nathaniel Hawthorne. There were two personas in “The Scarlet Letter”, one telling the story of the scarlet letter and the other, making a satirical statement about the state of contemporary politics. To me, this is amazing and makes me relate to it, remembering of those times at school where I feel awkward and feel as a different person but as soon as I get home I feel like my own self once again and I realized that we can all have two different personas in ourselves.
In The Scarlet Letter, author Nathaniel Hawthorne efficiently conveys his purpose to the audience through the use of numerous rhetorical devices in his novel. Two such rhetorical strategies Hawthorne establishes to convey his purpose of informing the audience of valuable life lessons in The Scarlet Letter are characterization and the theme of duality.
Beginning with the very first words of The Scarlet Letter the reader is thrust into a bleak and unforgiving setting. “A thong of bearded men, in sad-colored garments,” that are said to be “intermixed with women,” come off as overpowering and all-encompassing; Hawthorne quickly and clearly establishes who will be holding the power in this story: the males (Hawthorne 45). And he goes even further with his use of imagery, painting an even more vivid picture in the reader’s mind. One imagines a sea of drab grays and browns, further reinforcing the unwelcoming feeling this atmosphere seems to inheren...
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne attempted to expose the varying ways in which different people deal with lingering guilt from sins they have perpetrated. The contrasting characters of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale ideally exemplified the differences in thought and behavior people have for guilt. Although they were both guilty of committing the same crime, these two individuals differed in that one punished themselves with physical and mental torture and the other chose to continue on with their life, devoting it to those less fortunate than they.
Oscar Wilde, an Irish poet, novelist, and playwright, believed, “What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise” (Think Exist). Wilde’s quotation conveys the idea of duality residing within every situation, person, and object. Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the idea further in his classic novel The Scarlet Letter. In the novel Hawthorne demonstrates duality within the character Pearl and the forest; he suggests an optimistic perspective of the world.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a truly outstanding author. His detailed descriptions and imagery will surely keep people interested in reading The Scarlet Letter for years to come. In writing this book he used themes evident throughout the entirety of the novel. These themes are illustrated in what happens to the characters and how they react. By examining how these themes affect the main characters, Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, one can obtain a better understanding of what Hawthorne was trying to impress upon his readers.
The Tempest, is a timeless play about Prospero getting justice by having his throne back. William Shakespeare uses various dramatic elements to help readers deepen their understanding of the text in the play. The archetype critical theory can be used when reading Act 1, Scene 2 of The Tempest, for enhancing the reader’s understanding of the play. The archetype critical theory is patterns that are universal and have been applied to literature. These archetypes are present in the symbols, imagery, allusions, and dramatic irony of the scene.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of America's most renowned authors, demonstrates his extraordinary talents in two of his most famed novels, The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. To compare these two books seems bizarre, as their plots are distinctly different. Though the books are quite seemingly different, the central themes and Hawthorne's style are closely related (Carey, p. 62). American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne is most famous for his books THE SCARLET LETTER and THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES, which are closely related in theme, the use of symbolism, characterization, and style.
William Shakespeare’s The Tempest provides dialogue that portrays the social expectations and stereotypes imposed upon women in Elizabethan times. Even though the play has only one primary female character, Miranda, the play also includes another women; Sycorax, although she does not play as large a roll. During many scenes, the play illustrates the characteristics that represent the ideal woman within Elizabethan society. These characteristics support the fact that men considered women as a mere object that they had the luxury of owning and were nowhere near equal to them. Feminists can interpret the play as a depiction of the sexist treatment of women and would disagree with many of the characteristics and expectations that make Miranda the ideal woman. From this perspective, The Tempest can be used to objectify the common expectations and treatment of women within the 16th and 17th Centuries and compare and contrast to those of today.
unlike Shakespeare, who was forced to the contrary course by circumstances, Hawthorne (either from simple disinclination, or else from inaptitude) refrains from all the popularizing noise and show of broad farce, and blood-besmeared tragedy; content with the still, rich utterances of a great intellect in repose, and which sends
Shakespeare’s plays are a product of the Elizabethan theatrical context in which they were first performed. A lot of pressure was put on Shakespeare as he wrote his plays because he was not allowed to upset the royal family. His style would have been different than others in those times and a lot more thought has gone into his writing than people listening would think. Usually, the audience take for granted the cleverness and thought of Shakespeare’s writing, however, now we have studied and gone into great detail about Shakespeare’s writing, we can appreciate it more than they did:
An overarching summary of the acting style in ‘The Tempest’ would be Melodramatic. This means their are the stock, stereotypical characters: The hero which is Prospero, the heroine which is Miranda, the joker which is Trinculo and Stephano, the villain who is Antonio, the villains accomplice who is Sebastian, the faithful servant who is Caliban and the lover, who is Ferdinand. Each of these characters would be exaggerated according to there stereotype. Melodramatic acting also presents emotions bigger and over the top; as suited to the Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre spaces and
Ultimately, throughout The Scarlet Letter, it is indisputably evident that Hawthorne employs his narrator and the classic “public versus private” dichotomy to convey certain ideas and beliefs, especially concerning the characters, and how social morals and private inclinations shape them. Moreover, the reader can conclude that, according to Hawthorne’s implicit messages, it is not always possible for one to reconcile the force of personal desire and the force of community; and, the reader is also able to surmise that for the narrator, satisfying one’s personal impulses is more important than conforming to societal or cultural demands. Finally, the narrator applies the public versus private dichotomy in regards to another pressing topic--is
In The Tempest (TT) William Shakespeare creates social distinctions between the character’s in the book and then deconstructs them by placing them on an island. Shakespeare shows that social distinctions matter very little in the face of nature. Characters who realize this attempt to gain power, however Prospero reestablishes order and places them back where they were before. The character’s disregard social class all throughout The Tempest due to their new setting.
Individualism in The Scarlet Letter is constrained due to the rigid societal influences of the
The Scarlet Letter is a fictional novel that begins with an introductory passage titled ‘The Custom-House’. This passage gives a historical background of the novel and conveys the narrator’s purpose for writing about the legend of Hester Prynne even though the narrator envisions his ancestors criticizing him and calling him a “degenerate” because his career was not “glorifying God”, which is very typical of the strict, moralistic Puritans. Also, although Hawthorne is a Romantic writer, he incorporates properties of Realism into his novel by not idealizing the characters and by representing them in a more authentic manner. He does this by using very formal dialogue common to the harsh Puritan society of the seventeenth century and reflecting their ideals through this dialogue. The Puritans held somewhat similar views as the Transcendentalists in that they believed in the unity of God and the world and saw signs and symbols in human events, such as when the citizens related the meteo...