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How to understand romanticism in literature
How to understand romanticism in literature
Romantic and gothic era authors
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A lot of the time when we look at the writers that wrote specifically during the romanticism era we see it vital to figure out the significant, every so often underlining, messages that an author may be trying to convey through their plot, character arrangement or even the scenes that the characters find themselves in. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s My Kinsman, Major Molineux, is a great example of how an author tells more about the world around themselves through the stories they write. In this short story we are introduced to a young boy, Robin, who is in search of an older gentleman, Major Molineux, which he feels a strong connection to and is determined to find. From a literal perspective one could see this short story for exactly what is written but to gather a deeper meaning it is important to look at the symbolism of a quest/journey to understand what Hawthorne may have been expressing. On a profounder level this short story is about reform and the journey to become conscious that the stability and security a person may have once had may not be present when reform takes place. But Hawthorne goes even deeper by allowing Robin to come to conclusion that, more importantly, he did not need Major Molineux to survive. This story can be seen as a story of some of the American people after independence. We can see that the American people, young and inquisitive, were going through a journey much like Robin. The American people, during this time period, had gained their independence from Great Britain for quite some time but not every American citizen had adapted to the transformation and reform. Some Americans still had emotional ties to the system that was once in place and were on the journey of understanding the importance of their free...
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This short story embodies the revolutionary perception that provoked colonists to reject their ties with Great Britain. There were signs that people did not like the Major or did not want to be associated with him. “Not intimately…but I chanced to meet him a little…” (Hawthorne, 383) It implies that it was necessary for the American to move onward without the help of Great Britain. The Major could be defeated and had been. “…His enemies had found the means to shake it…” (Hawthorne, 383)By Robin learning the truth about his uncle, he somehow becomes of age and he no longer needs the authority that was once placed over him. He, just like the American people, now rejects the previous authority. Being confronted with the decision to not return to his home and to stay in Boston is one that asserts the similarities between the American colonists and Robin.
This story, as a whole, possesses both strengths and weaknesses. This book has two strengths. One of those strengths is that the book contains pictures. The pictures add a visual context to the story, which is quite useful and helpful to those in the audience that are visual learners. For example, in the eight pages in between pages 138 and 139 contain pictures along with descriptive captions. Some of these pictures include the famous picture or painting of the Boston Massacre, John Burgoyne, Major-General Sir Henry Clinton, Charles Lee, a political cartoon named “Six-Pence a Day”, a self-portrait of Major John Andre, a British drummer and fifer, General Burgoyne’s camp and German mercenaries of the Prince Carl Regiment. Throughout the book, there are also pages that contain various maps. By including these pictures in the book, as well as many others, readers are able to visualize the American Revolutionary War and its events as they read through the text. By doing this, they are able to better understand the book’s content and storyline. The second of these strengths is its organization. By putting the events in chronological order, the audience is able to create a mental timeline of war’s happenings and helps them
Alfred Young is a historian who takes a harder look at the life of an ordinary Boston man, George Robert twelves Hewes, before and after the revolution changes in America. The book looks at the developments that led up to the American Revolution through the life Hewes, who goes from a shoemaker to a rebel. Not only was Hewes a participant in the Boston Massacre, he was also involved in the event that later would be referred to as the Tea party. His involvements in these events paint a clearer picture of what can motivate someone to take up arms and fight for their freedom.
A human being is subject to feelings that range from happiness to depression to indifferent. Whenever an author captures even some of the emotions that a person goes through, the author has made the characters realistic. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson are two perfect examples of authors who master the art of capturing feelings within the characters. Both books display instances where the characters are subject to the feelings of deceit, despair, and dejection; therefore, the characters seem as though they were alive and breathing.
In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes imagery to convey that Dimmesdale can represent Puritan Society rather than the round character that can be seen on the surface level. This is seen through the imagery and symbolism of hypocrisy, Dimmesdale as a Christ figure, and the scarlet letter.
Since ours is an age that has found irony, ambiguity, and paradox to be central not only in literature but in life, it is not surprising that Hawthorne has seemed to us one of the most modern of nineteenth century American writers. The bulk and general excellence of the great outburst of Hawthorne criticism of the past decade attest to his relevance for us(54).
Knowing and understanding social, political, and cultural history is extremely important when reading many novels, especially Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Linda Brent and any short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Both of these authors had many extinuating circumstances surrounding their writings that should be noted before reading their works. Without knowing what was happening both in the outside world and in the respected author's life, one cannot truly grasp what the author is trying to say or what the author truly means by what he or she is saying. In this paper, I will show how important it is for the reader to understand the social, political, and cultural happenings in the writer's lives and in the world surrounding them during the times that their works were written.
Since ours is an age that has found irony, ambiguity, and paradox to be central not only in literature but in life, it is not surprising that Hawthorne has seemed to us one of the most modern of nineteenth century American writers. The bulk and general excellence of the great outburst of Hawthorne criticism of the past decade attest to his relevance for us (54).
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an extraordinary writer, who used real life experiences in every one of his stories. However, growing up in a Puritan society during a reformation gave Hawthorne a distorted view on God’s character. Hawthorne was intelligent, but by no means a people person, which created a pathway for him to become an author. There were a few key points in his life growing in a religion zealous society that lead him to abandon his faith. Hence, the short story of “Young Goodman Brown” representing that humans are cynical and evil, and the dangers of losing your faith in God.
The American Dream is said to be realised through hard work and perseverance ; it is ostensibly a reachable goal for anyone who chooses to exercise their ‘inalienable right’ to the ‘pursuit of Happiness.’ This ambiguous phrase, ‘the pursuit of Happiness’ was originally inserted into the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson and is a clear and overriding concern in The Great Gatsby. In the 1920s, when the novel is set, America was experiencing a newfound level of prosperity; the economy was booming and the possibility of gaining wealth became an achievable reality. As a result, the pursuit of happiness in The Great Gatsby is far from the founding fathers’ initial intentions and instead, in this new context, Fitzgerald demonstrates the confusion of happiness with money and social standing. American ideals were replaced with a fixation to gather material wealth regardless of consequence, and success no longer required hard work. Fitzgerald clearly depicts this mutated pursuit of happiness through the setting and characterisation in the novel. Revolutionary Road similarly reflects this altered American pursuit through the naivety and self-delusion of the characters and their actions.
“To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,--it is impalpable,--it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.” (Hawthorne 115) Throughout the hostile novel The Scarlet Letter, author Nathaniel Hawthorne used contrasting settings to represent opposed ideas that were central to the meaning of the work. Some have argued that when it came to the theme that secrets have a destructive effect on the secret-keeper and truth, by contrast, was natural, a character evaluation would best advocate these differences. However, two settings, Dimmesdale’s house and the secrets that lie within, and the scaffold representing the truth, better embody the adverse ideas posed by the point at issue.
Considering first “Roger Malvin's Burial,” the reader is immediately caught off-balance in terms of the presentation of the background to the story. A battle has been fought and won. This, in the introduction, is presented in a fashion when Hawthorne tells us that “The battle, though so fatal to those who fought, was not unfortunate in its consequences to the country; for it broke the strength of a tribe and conduced to the peace which subsisted during several ensuing years” (20). In this lack of empathy for the Native Americans protecting their own homeland, we may realizes from the beginning that we are dealing with a writer whose sensibilities we may not ourselves share. As the story develops, this tends to be confirmed.
Lang, H.J. “How Ambiguous is Hawthorne?” In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Frank, America’s mother, Browning and the whole system are responsible for all the negative impact on America. First, America’s mother forced America to suffer by deserting him with his brothers. Second, Browning deliberately uses America for the purposes of achieving his immoral ambitions. Finally, the system is guilty for backing away from America when he needed the system the most. The novel shows the reader that how America lost his ability to trust someone ever again and how after a lot of struggles and pain, how he was able to gain that belief to ever trust someone once again. After reading this novel, people should acknowledge the fact that, these are individuals who have gone through a lot of pain either emotionally or mentally and it is not easy for them to recover and be able to live a normal life once again. So in order to avoid turning someone into America, people should always there prior attention to these people and help them to be able to come out of their fears and to be able to live happily once
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, there are many moral and social themes develped throughout the novel. Each theme is very important to the overall effect of the novel. In essence, The Scarlet Letter is a story of sin, punishment and the importance of truth. One theme which plays a big role in The Scarlet Letter is that of sin and its effects. Throughout the novel there were many sins committed by various characters. The effects of these sins are different in each character and every character was punished in a unique way. Two characters were perfect examples of this theme in the novel. Hester Prynne and The Reverend Dimmesdale best demonstrated the theme of the effects of sin.
What would you think of a man who left his family, moved over to the next street to watch their lives unfold, and then returned after twenty years as if nothing had happened? What could drive a man to such bizarre behavior? These are the issues that Nathaniel Hawthorne deals with in the story of Mr. Wakefield. The very idea that a man could possibly do such a thing makes the audience want to understand his intentions. It is hard for a modern audience to make sense of such a story because television shows and movies have made today’s society focus so much on easily apparent themes or morals. Hawthorne used this story to examine society’s motivations. In his short story “Wakefield,” it is necessary that Hawthorne uses the narrator as a tool to shed light on Mr. Wakefield’s motives as well as to emphasize the story’s theme, that an individual can only appreciate and understand his life by looking in on it from the outside.