Biogram

A detailed Summary of Biogram

The man Nathaniel Hawthorne, an author of the nineteenth century, was born in 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts. It was there that he lived a poverty-stricken childhood without the financial support of a father, because he had passed away in 1808. Hawthorne was raised strictly Puritan, his great-grandfather had even been one of the judges in the Puritan witchcraft trials during the 1600s. This and Hawthorne's destitute upbringing advanced his understanding of human nature and distress felt by social, religious, and economic inequities. Hawthorne was a private individual who fancied solitude with family friends. He was also very devoted to his craft of writing. Hawthorne observed the decay of Puritanism with opposition; believing that is was a man's responsibility to pursue the highest truth and possessed a strong moral sense. These aspects of Hawthorne's philosophy are what drove him to write about and even become a part of an experiment in social reform, in a utopian colony at Brook Farm. He believed that the Puritans' obsession with original sin and their ironhandedness undermined instead of reinforced virtue. As a technician, Hawthorne's style in literature was abundantly allegorical, using the characters and pl

Hawthorne, a Romantic writer, used his technical skills of allegory and light/dark imagery in The Scarlet Letter to enlighten his readers with truths. He was very allegorical, using characters and plot together to portray a moral lesson. Pearl is used in this novel as an allegory for truth. Throughout the work Pearl acts in ways that are untypical of someone of her infancy. Yet, Hawthorne uses it to bestow upon the reader a lesson. Pearl says that the reason her mother wears the scarlet letter "is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his heart". In reality a truth such as this would not be know to a seven-year-old. Hawthorne uses Pearl to show that regardless of how deeply hidden sins are, like Dimmesdale's is, the truth will be revealed. Roger Chillingworth is also an allegory, for revenge. His character has no other part in the plot other than to seek cold-blooded retaliation on Dimmesdale. As time went on "there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still more obvious to the sight, the oftener they looked upon him". This description of Chillingworth is like revenge itself, growing more and more hideous as time goes on until it totally consumes a person. Hawthorne also manipulates the atmosphere of his novel to enlighten his readers with a moral lesson. The light/dark imagery he uses represents the Puritans hiding of their sins. In The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale only stands on the scaffold with Prynne and Pearl at midnight. In the dark, when no one is looking he is willing to show the world his part in Prynne's adultery. As Pearl, the allegory for truth says to Dimmesdale, "Thou wast not bold! -thou wast not true! Thou wouldst not promise to take my hand, and Mother's hand, tomorrow noontide!" Pearl also communicates truths to her mother through the same light/dark imagery. "Mother, the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something

Some common words found in the essay are:
Hester Prynne's, Salem Massachusetts, Scarlet Letter, Brook Farm, Hawthorne Prynne, Dimmesdale Thou, Roger Chillingworth, Letter Hawthorne's, Hester Prynne, Throughout Pearl, scarlet letter, light/dark imagery, moral lesson, novel scarlet letter, novel scarlet, reading scarlet letter, judges puritan, letter hawthorne's, puritan witchcraft, witchcraft trials, nathaniel hawthorne's, scarlet letter hawthorne, allegory light/dark imagery, seen reading scarlet, examples hawthorne's,

Approximate Word count = 1341
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English