Download
1 / 12
120 likes | 338 Views
Ch.5 – Hester at Her Needle. Hester’s choice to remain in area. Is it fatality compelling her to “linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where” this event has changed her life? ( p.76 / p.83) OR, is it a union, a connection she feels, with some
E N D
Ch.5 – Hester at Her Needle • Hester’s choice to remain in area. • Is it fatality compelling her to “linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where” this event has changed her life? (p.76/p.83) • OR, is it a union, a connection she feels, with some • Hester is still separated from society, both physically in her home and socially by the children and people of the town. • She dresses herself plainly but Pearl lavishly.
Ch.5 – Hester at Her Needle • Allusion – “…[the world] could not entirely cast her off, although it had set a mark upon her, more intolerable to a woman’s heart than that which branded the brow of Cain.” (p.81/p.87) – God marked Cain after he killed his brother Abel, condemning him to walk the earth. The mark let others know he was not to be killed and would therefore receive no relief from suffering. • Not only does Hester sell her embroidery to the highest classes in town, but she sews for the needy as well. Even the needy scorned her, though.
Ch. 6 - Pearl • Allusion – “But [Hester] named the infant ‘Pearl,’ as being of great price, -- purchased with all she had, -- her mother’s only treasure!” (p.85/p.92)– the parable in Matthew 13:45-46, where there is mention of a merchant who sells everything he owns to purchase one pearl. – describes what Hester gives up for Pearl. • What does Pearl represent in the novel? She is a many-sided creature
Ch. 6 - Pearl • What does Pearl represent in the novel? She is a very complex creature. • Hester’s shame AND her greatest treasure. • Hester’s punishment AND her consolation. • Pearl is wild AND madly in love with her mother. • Pearl inspires a feeling of contempt AND strange enchantment (from her mother.) • Pearl is ostracized by the community the same way Hester is. Yet, Pearl’s existence suggests that out of sin can come treasure, just as Hester’s needlework is beauty crafted out of necessity born of shame. • Puritans speculate that she is a demon child.
Romanticism • An artistic, literary and intellectual movement taking place in end of the 18th and into the 19th centuries in Europe. (In America, roughly 1830 up to the Civil War.) • Poets like Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, and William Blake • Novelists like Hawthorne and Melville (Moby Dick) and Poe • Artists like Francisco Goya and Thomas Cole
Romantic Literature • Imagination and emotion • Intuition guides conduct • Love of nature and respect for the “common man” • Country life is idealized; society’s ills are caused by urbanization. • Interest in Medieval past, the supernatural, the mystical, the “gothic,” and the exotic
Romantic Literature • Attracted to rebellion and revolution, especially concerned with human rights, individualism, and freedom from oppression • Emphasis on introspection, psychology, melancholy and sadness • The art often deals with death, transience and mankind’s feelings about those things.
Ch. 7 – The Governor’s Hall • Hester and Pearl visit Governor Bellingham • Pearl’s appearance mirrors that of the scarlet letter: “Her mother…arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic, of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold-thread.” (p. 98/p. 105) • Pearl stands in contrast to the stiff Puritan society.
Ch. 7 – The Governor’s Hall • The children “fling mud at them” – even the children scorn them. • Pearl’s reaction likened to an illness: “She resembled, in her fierce pursuit of them, an infant pestilence, -- the scarlet fever, or some such half-fledged angel of judgment, -- whose mission was to punish the sins of the rising generation.” (p.99/p.106)
Ch. 8 – The Elf-Child and the Minister • Bellingham’s mansion – shows the reader that he has brought a little of the “old world” to the new. Suggests that he has brought things that the Puritans sought to escape: intolerance and lack of freedom. • Decaying garden suggests that Bellingham is cold and incapable of nurturing things. • Rosebush makes another appearance. • Suit of Armor = suggests war & violence, but Bellingham trained as a lawyer. New World forced him to fight. Suggests he has overextended himself in his new careers.
Ch. 8 – The Elf-Child and the Minister • Hester’s distorted reflection in armor = suggests her unnatural place in society. • Pearl shuns Reverend Wilson and clings to Dimmesdale. • Pearl has a profound subconscious insight: her impulse reflects the characters of the two men. Wilson is not to be trusted, while Dimmesdale, although he refuses to acknowledge his guilt, will remain loyal to her and her mother. • Mistress Hibbins = an admitted witch who participates in satanic practices, yet remains protected because she is Bellingham’s sister.
