The Scarlet Letter - Lies and Guilt People live with lies every day. Everyone from the President of the United States to the poorest beggar in New York City has told a lie. White lies, gray lies, and plain old dirty fat lies are strewn forth every day like water from a fountain. The only true difference between them is the amount of guilt they place on the liar. If they feel guilt, then they suffer greatly throughout their lives, from lots of small indiscretions or just one large one. The majority of the people in this world have the ability to alleviate their guilt through some kind of penance, but for some that is not enough. Nothing they do can erase the feeling of guilt and the knowledge they did something wrong. People like this make themselves sick with worry and regret, and they often die of their disease: depression. Those people who do manage to drop their guilt become productive members of society again because they have reconnected with the rest of the human race. They dont deny their guilt or their crimes, they just acknowledge there are some things they cannot change, they can just try to make up for them. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne the decision of the characters to either admit or hide the truth determines the quality of their lives. While Hester Pryne admits her sins and resolves them over time through her charity work, Arthur Dimmsdale bottles up his sins and, even though he physically tortures himself, cannot resolve his great misdeeds. The first character to choose a path is Hester Pryne. While she did have a child when she hadnt seen her husband in over a year, (a dead giveaway) she could have easily fled the colony before the birth. She instead stayed and faced her peers, and in that way she admitted her sin. To flee would have led her along a completely different path, one of denial. Hester didnt quite buy into all the Puritan ideals, but she knew that, according to the Bible, adultery was a sin against God. Only the tremendous courage she had, and the large sense of righteousness in her blood kept her from fleeing. She obviously believed that her form of penance would be enough to gain her sanctity in the eyes of God, even though the Puritans held opposing beliefs: The Scarlet Letter explicitly declares the impossibility of redemption for the sinner. If you dont let the world share in your guilt, it will all be upon you, and only you. With the crushing weight of guilt she would have had, she would not have lived longer than those seven years. Even the Puritan people who openly despised her at the time she exposed her sin, eventually were won over by her vast charity work. They began to associate the letter A with able, and not adultery. And all she accomplished was because she spoke the truth, and the truth wasnt really as bad as it looked. Her husband was an old misshapen man for whom she had no love. He had been gone for a long period of time, and maybe she believed that he was even dead. Her sin was remote and not completely justified in the morals of these modern times, and she grasped that even then. The author Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote it best: Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred. (242) If all the people know your worst, only then can they begin to work through that and begin to see your best. If all they see is the good side of you, then you are holding back from them, lying to them. Only when you show both sides do you begin to gain penance, and that is exactly what Hester Pryne did. While Hester Pryne gained freedom from her guilt, Dimmsdales failure to admit his crime slowly destroyed his life. Dimmsdale never confessed his sin, even though he was given numerous opportunities. And, like Chillingsworth said at the end of the book, a confession would have ended Chillingsworths evil prematurely: There was no place where thou couldst have escaped me! (236) In an obvious parallel to Hesters stout and quick admittance, Dimmsdale is the contradiction: he suffers great agony and fails to admit his sin until minutes before his death (a cowardly way out). His great Puritanical beliefs left him no recourse really: one of the main faults of Puritanism (and most Protestantism) is the lack of a way to cleanse yourself of sins: there is no described way to lay down your guilt. While Hester suffered those seven years with the townspeople united against her, Dimmsdale gained prestige and fame due to his great preaching. He led wondrously moving sermons on honesty and the fate of those who did not come clean with God. The horribly ironic thing is that this would have gained him penance in our time. Many former drug addicts make their living giving motivational lectures to groups pleading with them not to make the same mistakes. The only difference is the same one at the roots of all Dimmsdales problems: these drug users were all admitted junkies. Dimmsdale had admitted nothing, and that just made him a gigantic hypocrite. Instead Dimmsdale spent seven long years with a horrible secret burning in his heart, and later his chest. He used a bloody scourge to inflict a hideous wound upon himself in a misguided attempt to gain penance: Some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. Dimmsdale had begun a course of penance: which he afterwards, in so many futile methods, followed out- by inflicting a hideous torture on himself. (240) The key word in that quote is futile. The theme of his denial cannot be emphasized enough. All of his hidden sin also allowed one Mr. Chillingsworth to take advantage of him. While the effect of the medicines that Chillingsworth gave to Mr. Dimmsdale were never mentioned in the book (and are debated even now), I firmly believe that they are what kept him alive those seven years. The only thing worse than horrible suffering leading to an early death is long, drawn out horrible suffering leading to death. And Hawthorne pulled no punches in describing the quality of life that Dimmsdale enjoyed: Hawthornes portrait of the twistings and windings of a guilty conscience is finely observed and vividly rendered. (pg#) Truly Hawthorne must have had some horrible insight into a guilty conscience sometime during his life, or he just really disagreed with every single principle of Puritanism (maybe both). Truly, (no pun intended) Dimmsdales failure to live honestly ravaged the quality of his life. Hester Prynes life of charity and honesty, blurred only with her great sin, ended with the love of her daughter and her ultimate forgiveness. Dimmsdales life of dishonesty and hypocrisy led him down a winding spiral of despair and depression with only a meager attempt at forgiveness near the end of his life. The decision of the characters in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne to either admit or hide the absolute truths in their lives determined the quality of their lives. The guilty in this world will always have a choice, no matter how difficult it is. They can take Hesters route: admit their sins and strive the rest of their lives to gain forgiveness. Or they can take Dimmsdales route: Repress their sins and forever live with that awful feeling at the bottom of your stomach that the guilty have.
In the book The Scarlet Letter, the character Reverend Dimmesdale, a very religious man, committed adultery, which was a sin in the Puritan community. Of course, this sin could not be committed alone. His partner was Hester Prynne. Hester was caught with the sinning only because she had a child named Pearl. Dimmesdale was broken down by Roger Chillinsworth, Hester Prynne’s real husband, and by his own self-guilt. Dimmesdale would later confess his sin and die on the scaffold. Dimmesdale was well known by the community and was looked up to by many religious people. But underneath his religious mask he is actually the worst sinner of them all. His sin was one of the greatest sins in a Puritan community. The sin would eat him alive from the inside out causing him to become weaker and weaker, until he could not stand it anymore. In a last show of strength he announces his sin to the world, but dies soon afterwards. In the beginning Dimmesdale is a weak, reserved man. Because of his sin his health regresses more and more as the book goes on, yet he tries to hide his sin beneath a religious mask. By the end of the book he comes forth and tells the truth, but because he had hidden the sin for so long he is unable to survive. Dimmesdale also adds suspense to the novel to keep the reader more interested in what Reverend Dimmesdale is hiding and his hidden secrets. Therefore Dimmesdale’s sin is the key focus of the book to keep the reader interested. Dimmesdale tries to cover up his sin by preaching to the town and becoming more committed to his preachings, but this only makes him feel guiltier. In the beginning of the story, Dimmesdale is described by these words; “His eloquence and religious fervor had already given earnest of high eminence in his profession.”(Hawthorne,44). This proves that the people of the town looked up to him because he acted very religious and he was the last person that anyone expected to sin. This is the reason that it was so hard for him to come out and tell the people the truth. Dimmesdale often tried to tell the people in a roundabout way when he said “…though he (Dimmesdale) were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life.
The overture grew out of 17th century baroque dramatic works which began with either a French ouverture, the word from which the term is derived, or an Italian overture (Sadie, 1980). Composers such as Lully, Purcell and Handel used the French overture which is in two sections, each marked with a repeat. The French overture begins with a slow homophonic section frequently using dotted rhythms often ending on a half cadence and then moves to a faster fugal or "quasi-fugal" section which usually makes a return to the slow tempo and rhythms of the first section (Stolba, 1998). The Italian overture, or sinfonia as it was sometimes called, was written in three movements which are fast-slow-fast in order, the finale often written in a dance like character (Peyser, 1986). By the eighteenth century, this type of overture prevailed for operas even in France with the first movement becoming longer and more elaborate. Sonata form was generally used and a slow introduction would often begin the work (Sadie, 1980). Due to the loose terminology of the eighteenth century, symphonies and suites were sometimes called overtures (Peyser, 1986). The slow-fast-slow alternation of tempos foreshadowed the order of movements in the Classical symphony, lacking only the menue...
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Mr. Dimmesdale’s greatest fear is that the townspeople will find out about his sin of adultery with Hester Prynne. Mr. Dimmesdale fears that his soul could not take the shame of such a disclosure, as he is an important moral figure in society. However, in not confessing his sin to the public, he suffers through the guilt of his sin, a pain which is exacerbated by the tortures of Roger Chillingworth. Though he consistently chooses guilt over shame, Mr. Dimmesdale goes through a much more painful experience than Hester, who endured the public shame of the scarlet letter. Mr. Dimmesdale’s guilt is much more damaging to his soul than any shame that he might have endured.
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.
Guilt, shame, and penitence are just a few of the emotions that are often associated with a great act of sin. Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale, a highly respected minister of a 17th century Puritan community, is true example of this as he was somehow affected by all of these emotions after committing adultery. Due to the seven years of torturous internal struggle that finally resulted in his untimely death, Mr. Dimmesdale is the character who suffered the most throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Mr. Dimmesdale’s ever present guilt and boundless penance cause him an ongoing mental struggle of remorse and his conscience as well as deep physical pain from deprivation and self inflicted wounds. The external influence of the members of his society
The Circus Maximus was a tremendous money maker for Rome. Rome made a lot of money and happiness for their citizens. The Circus Maximus started in 549 BC and ended in 50 BC, bringing in about 270,000 people each race. Lots of ideas and practices that they did in the Circus Maximus we still do today. For example, we still use the shape of the track, the stadiums, and multiple sports today are based off the Circus Maximus. The Circus Maximus was so popular for its competition, thrill. A tremendous amount of people went to these races. This was because the citizens of Rome were greatly involved the happiness of competition.
The way Hester and Dimmesdale approached their sins has a direct correlation with how they lived the rest of their lives. Hester confessed her sin because she had no choice she already had incriminating evidence in the form of a child and had to confess or be expelled from the community. In this sense, Hester had no choice but to confess or leave the community and she chose to confess. Although, we may not know why she made this choice, but we know she made it and she decided to stay with it and not leave the community in order to possibly confess her sins. Arthur Dimmesdale did not confess his sins for all the wrong reasons. He didn’t confess for mostly two reasons those being: his belief that man did not judge other men but only God can do that or that he will better serve his people with a sinful heart and not a sinful appearance. Arthur had to deal with all the pressures of a life of sin but also the pressure of his own conscience to confess those sins. The pressures on his body were worse than that of Hester who had confessed her sins. One of the main reasons that Arthur was in poor physical condition was that the wise Doctor Chillingworth had poisoned him, and kept poisoning him until he had confessed of his sins at the end of the book. This and the fact that his grief and guilt had led him to totally decimate his body both spiritually and physically he had just driven himself too far. Farther than any person should take this kind of self-mutilation. His social life also suffered as a result of this physical and mental torture because he had turned into a walking zombie and had not been very responsive to anything but his terrible torment. In this way, he was degrading himself and thought it necessary to do so for repentance. Although, he had not voiced his sin publicly he had preached about himself not being pure and being a sinner. In spite of this, the unknowing congregation worshiped him all the more for his self-proclamation of sinfulness without telling what his sin was.
Creon seemed to be a loyal king, would wanted to prove his worthiness to the people of Thebes, but Creon also had a stubborn side. This stubborn side of Creon rooted from his love of power. Creon strongly believed in a powerful kingdom and felt that everyone should obey his rules as king and this revealed that he was truly self centered person who thought highly of himself. However, Creon will experience a change of heart toward the end of the play.
That man who Hester loves so deeply, Mr. Dimmesdale also undergoes major changes due the sin he bears. In the beginning of the book we see this man’s weakness and unwillingness to confess sin even as he begs Hester the person he committed his sin with to come forth with her other parties name (p56). As The Scarlet Letter progresses we see Dimmesdale become weaker physically and his religious speeches become even stronger so that his congregation begins to revere him. For a large part of the novel Dimmesdale has been on a downward spiral in terms of mental and physical health thanks to a so-called friend who was issued to take care of Mr. Dimmesdale, then because of a talk with Hester he is revitalized and given the power to do something, which he could not for seven long years. At the end of the novel Dimmesdale is finally able to recognize his family in public and confess his sin before all releasing the sin he held so long hidden in his heart (p218, 219).
Theirry Guetta was a beautiful example of how seeing a simple piece of graffiti can influence a person and how they live their lives. While his life was building up to the moment he became rich off of his creativity, it helped him become the man who he is today. No matter how unique his life has been, one thing has been a constant in his life, along with many others; He was influence by the color and personality shown through a piece of art, which was the intent in the first place.
...Roger Chillingworth, becomes a leech to Dimmesdale. Psychologically torturing Dimmesdale about his guilt, Chillingworth attacks Dimmesdale’s mind, making him believe that there is no way of escaping his sin. After the psychological torture, Dimmesdale hits his lowest point, being engulfed by his sin without a way of escape. Hester’s actions and the actions of her husband cause Dimmesdale’s downfall and the only way for Dimmesdale’s escape from his suffering is death.
In the end, Hester and Dimmesdale’s repentance is best scrutinized at Dimmesdale’s death. Even as he dies, he recognizes their offense as worthy of God’s condemnation. He fears God and sees his afflictions as God’s merciful torture. He accounts God’s three afflictions: the giving of the ‘burning torture upon his breast,’ the sending of Chillingworth who kept his guilt alive in his heart, and the bringing of him to the scaffold whereon he would ‘die the death of triumphant ignomy before the people.’ “Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost forever!” Dimmesdale confesses, praises God, and dies. It seems that Dimmesdale considered himself to be redeemed, as he endured all the agonies God sent him, and ,to a certain extent,
Today's society is one in where everyone is always too busy thinking about the rush of their own lives. It is hard to simply sit down and think about the impact one has on the world. If there ever is a thought put into how the human race has affected the earth it is usually about the good things and not what has been harmful. Lately a few individuals have stood up to try to "save" the earth and tell everyone how the world is being damaged by the way we live. One of those individuals is Colin Beavan, who published the book No impact Man. In this books he embarks a journey where he goes a whole year trying to have zero impact on the earth. In such book he describes how he is trying to not just save the earth but also influence everyone else in doing the same. It all sounds like a great thing to do but trying to make an impact and change the way people are used to living is something quite almost impossible. Saving the enviroment is someting in wich everyone has to put effort into, but no one is interested in doing such thing
What is opera? Opera is a theatrical work that was set to music for people to sing. People that sing regular music probably never tried to sing opera because the singers never had a microphone to use and the opera houses that they did the operas in was big so they had to reach the outer portions of the room. Opera houses were built for the extra space they need to put on the shows that they were doing. With extra space and more seats there need to be a change in how opera were done. Operas started to become more romantic and have more passion than ever before. With that came a style of singing using full rich broad tones and smooth phrasing, which is called bel canto style. The style is defined by beautiful singing.
Descriptive style writing is factual with no analysis or evaluation (University of Leicester, 2009, University of Sydney, 2012). Novels and books are examples of where descriptive writing is more commonly used since it helps to set the scene of what the storyline is.