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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
A Critique Of Puritan Values And Social Restrictions, Laura Guebert
A Critique Of Puritan Values And Social Restrictions, Laura Guebert
Scholars Week
This paper outlines and discusses Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter through the lens of feminist and social critiques. It attempts to draw attention to the fates of both male and females characters in the story according to their personality and status. Therefore, by examining the complex treatment and relationships between the four principle characters of The Scarlet Letter and their author, Hawthorne’s use of a feminist critique can be understood as a wider criticism of Puritan and, by extension, mid-nineteenth century social and moral restrictions and expectations.
"One Accord Of Sympathy": The Relationship Between Narrator, Reader, And Puritans, Brianna E. Taylor
"One Accord Of Sympathy": The Relationship Between Narrator, Reader, And Puritans, Brianna E. Taylor
Scholars Week
Ambiguous narration in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter creates a reader that is simultaneously an insider privy to uncertain narrative report and an outsider sympathetic to Hester’s ignominy. While current reader response criticism explores narrative techniques of ambiguity and sympathy in isolation, this paper analyzes how these techniques are used in conjunction to establish a relationship between narrator and reader. The narrator’s role as storyteller and gossip, accepting explanations of a rational contemporary audience and superstitious Puritans, both defies Puritan inflexibility and creates intimacy that includes readers in this community. At the same time, a sympathetic relationship with Hester distances …