The Benefits of Sin Revealed in The Scarlet Letter
According to Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter, each of us is born with "original sin" we have inherited from the misdeeds of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. As Eve bit hungrily into the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, starving for wisdom, little did she know that the entire human race would thereafter be tainted by her "sin." Hawthorne and many others believe that ever since, human beings have been inclined to evil, more likely to disobey than to act in a godly manner. This is a faithless, cynical view of humanity, but one perhaps justified by the actions of Hester Prynne and the Reverend Dimmesdale. Sin seems to be an inevitable factor in their lives; though they are good people, their sin boils up and nearly destroys them. Do they make a conscious choice to sin? Or does their sin simply take control, as it is bound to do in all human beings? Perhaps this leads to a greater question of fate and free will, but in the end, the one thing they can really change in their lives is the way they deal with sin, how they attempt to atone for it - and whether they view the affair they had as sinful in the first place.
Puritan society in the Massachusetts Bay Colony was a system based on religion. The Bible and the law were intertwined and could not be separated, not even in the minds of the people. Therefore it was difficult to argue that there were any laws at all that were worth having, if they were not spelled out explicitly in the Bible. Hester had committed adultery and given birth to a bastard child, and there it was, in the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not commit adultery. And so she was punished. The Puritans nodded and were satisfied, comfortabl...
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A sinful nature is an aspect in man that makes him rebellious against God. Everyone has a sinful nature and it affects every part of us. Sin corrupts the human mind and has consequences for doing wrong in the eyes of the Lord. Every individual on Earth sins, and this is represented in the novel The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale to portray how different people cope with their sin and the consequences of that sin.
In various political addresses, Jefferson was seen as inseparable with strict interpretation and a contender for state rights. He tried to affirm the belief that domestic policies should be decided by the states and fears that the Federalists will change the Constitution (docum. A). By the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, Jefferson and Madison asserted that states were the foundation of the nation and therefore had suprem...
Griswold, Rufus Wilmot. "The Scarlet Letter." The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors. Ed. Charles Wells Moulton. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith Publishing, 1989. 341-371.
When Thomas Jefferson entered office in 1800, he came in with lots of new ideas and goals as the president. Jefferson believed in a smaller central government with stronger state governments. He was a Republican and favored the view of strict construction. He believed that, “Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government…” (Document A). Jefferson and his Republican party believed in a government that was going to work for the people and that was going to have them at its best interests. That is why they believed in having stronger state governments, they were closer to home and to the people they were governing, therefore they knew more of what the public needed. Document B also refers to strict construction and Jefferson’s beliefs. It talks about the freedoms that were stated in the constitution, mainly, the freedom of religion. Jefferson believes that the federal government should not have any say in dealing with religion of the people. The Republicans believed that any law stated in the Constitution should be strictly followed.
...and the public grew informed of the brutal acts. The African-Americans began to move West and by doing so, greatly reduced the white men's income and avenged their deceased friends.
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Jefferson and Madison were both Jeffersonian Republicans. During the presidencies of these two men, the Jeffersonian Republicans, at times, were accurate to their characteristics. They tended to be strict constructionists sticking to the constitution. In Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Gideon Granger, 13 August 1800 (Doc A), Jefferson talked
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the reader is able to observe how one sin devastates three lives. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth are all guilty of succumbing to temptation, anger, and desire, causing all to fit the definition of a sinner. Yet, Chillingworth's iniquities raise him up above Hester and Dimmesdale on the level of diabolic acts.
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They were congregationalists, meaning they believed that every local church was independent or autonomous. Their first influential leader was John Winthrop. His ideal Puritan colony was to be one that resembled “a city upon the hill”, one in which all others would look to for guidance. The Puritans believed in model religious communities, where all was good and pure. Unlike Catholicism, the Puritans believed in The Doctrine of Elect, a predetermined list of souls to be eternally saved or eternally damned. Although the Puritans believed that souls had been chosen long before, it was still status quo to act as if you were one of the divine chosen. Those who did not abide by social standards were more often than not judge for their differences. To be a misfit was to be almost exiled. Those who did not fit the status quo or maintain a positive character were deemed odd and foreign. Social life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony revolved around church. Puritans were some of the most intolerant people around. Puritans believed in religious freedom for those who fit their mold, those who were their idea of a godly citizen. The Puritans also believed highly in a strong work ethic. To be lazy was to be sloth like, one of the deadly sins. To be sinful was to invite the devil and the wrath of God into the land, and those who did so were punished with great severity. The Puritans believed that through a strict religious lifestyle and a strong hardworking colony they could influence other communities and colonies to establish and abide by their laws and their
Nathanial Hawthorne, an American author during the 19th century witnessed the power of sin to wreak havoc not only to an individual but a whole community. His novel The Scarlet Letter expresses this very idea by exposing the follies of mankind and the potentially detrimental effects of sin trough Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth who all affected by sin in different ways. Utilizing powerful symbols and light/dark imagery, Hawthorne conveys to the readers, through these characters, the power of how one’s response to sin can positively change an individual or gradually destroy one by spreading like a contagious disease and ultimately consuming the victim.
Tragically, however, very few of these goals were achieved. It seems as if every time the African Americans manage to move one step closer to reaching true equality among the Southern whites, whether it be in a social, political, or economic fashion, the whites always react by committing violent acts against them. Initially, the Southern whites (in fear of black supremacy in Southern politics) fought to preserve the white supremacy Southern politics had always functioned by. This “ushered most African Americans to the margins of the southern political world” (Brinkley, 369). Secondly, African Americans struggled to survive once they were set free; they had nowhere to live and nothing to eat. Because of such reasons, most former slaves decided to remain living on their plantations as tenants, paying their tenancy by working the crop fields. Sadly, even this failed for the African Americans due to the birth of the crop-lien system. Lastly, the Southern whites counteracted the effects of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments by establishing the Jim Crow laws, which aided them with upholding, if not increasing, the steady level of segregation in the South. Ultimately, out of the very few accomplishments made by the African American population during and following the Era of Reconstruction, there existed one achievement significant enough to change the course of American history: the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. As a result of these amendments, “would one day serve as the basis for a “Second Reconstruction” that would renew the drive to bring freedom to all Americans” (Brinkley,
Sewall, Richard B. "The Scarlet Letter: Criticism." Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 319-27.
In The Republic, Plato questioned what justice is. It’s noteworthy in the way he used how he views an individual’s soul to be an analogy for justice. He addressed his question heads-on with an answer stating that there are two types of justice. There’s an individual justice and a social justice. He believes that the individual’s justice has our rationality ruling over out appetites and emotional attachments. Social justice is the same exact thing. It has the rational parts (the leaders i.e. the philosophers) that rule over the appetites (workers) and the spirit (warriors). He says “the state is a man writ large,” which basically means, the state is a big person, it also has its own three parts and each part must be in balance. Plato’s answer to having two types of justice is very naturalistic, meaning the virtues aren’t created by people, but is discovered “out there.” He believes that someone who understands what each of the three parts of government does should be the leader (in other words, the philosophers). In order to keep the leader from doing the wrong thing, one must not select the wrong leader. He does not believe in having a check on the leader because we must select the right leaders and give them the power. To be a good citizen, the person should do what they are best suited for and they should be valuable to society. In his world, he wanted to give children tests to see what they were good at and that would be