Scarlet Letter R/D #2

Audrey Schultz Schultz 1
April 27,2011
English 1B

The Scarlet Letter

In reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne I chose to use the Reader Response Theory. I am interested in the social values and the concepts of good and evil that are being portrayed in the novel. There are two specific characters in the novel that I chose to focus my interest in and they are Hester Prynne and Pearl. The reason for choosing these two characters is because they together have to share in the burden of being marked as sinners of evil in the eyes of the Puritans belief system.
Hester Prynne a young women, lady-like, with a tall figure of perfect elegance with dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and her face with a richness of complexion and the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes.(40) The observers envied her grace and beauty, but most of all they envied the way she walked out with her head held high and the Scarlet Letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom.(41) The women spectators feel a slap in their face; for they feel that Hester is mocking them with her beautiful stitch work of the scarlet letter, as if laughing in the faces of their godly magistrates, and making a pride out of her punishment of sin. She has committed Adultry.
Even though she wore the letter of sin, “The A for Adultry” every one saw Hester Prynne in a different perspective. She held herself with natural dignity and force of character. Everyone who knew Hester prior to her sin, expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out. (40)
The following are some examples of The Puritan’s laws and punishment if laws were broken according to their beliefs:
1. Benefit of Clergy- the convicted may plead benefit of clergy, in which case, if they can read a passage from the Bible without one mistake, their sentence will be reduced.
2. Stocks- the convicted will have his head and hands placed in a locked stockade for the remainder of the day, and the community will be invited to pelt him with food. The convicted must clean up anything he is pelted with.
*3. Wearing a sign- a milder punishment than branding. The convicted must make their own sign to hang around their neck, which indicates their crime.
*4. Branding-the convicted is marked with letters that stands for their crime. HT for hog thief, A for Adulterer. The branding can be on the cheek, forehead, or more mildly on the hand or finger.
5. Ducking stool- for women only, usually used in the case of gossip. The woman shall be confined in a chair and dunked in water.
6. Whipping- for men only, a common punishment. A number of “lashes” is administered to the convicted back. Lashes usually number from 5 to 20.
*7. Public shaming- a milder form of punishment, the convicted is pulled on a rope through the town while the community is invited to point fingers at him/her and tell him/her that they are naughty and pelt him/her with small objects.
The late 16 hundreds, the Puritans wrote the laws according to the Old Testament of what the Bible stated. And to what they thought should be a sin against God. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony are a prime example of an extremist view of their religion. A religious fanatic is someone who takes his/her religion to the extreme, letting it control everything in his/her day to day life.
I believe that Dimmesdale

The Glass Menagerie....

 The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams was an intersting and sad read for me. I found that all the characters in the play write were all suffering from loneliness and from broken dreams. They are long-delayed but always expecting something that they can live for. With the absense of the Man of the house who abandonded his family to fend for them selves creates the main setting for everyones broken dreams and self-esteem. "He was a telephone man who fell in love with long distance; he gave up his job with the telephone company and skipped the light fantastic out of town..."(5) Even though the father abondonded his family they still kept a portriat of him on the mantel. Amanda who plays the mother is very hard on her two grown children. She pokes and pokes at them to better themselves for their family and their future. "What are we going to do, what is going to become of us, what is the future?"(12) Her daughter Laura has low self esteem and never finishes anything she starts. She didn't finish school because she was self-conscious about herself when she had pleurosis. She did poorly on her tests and therefore never went further in her study's. She pretty much excluded her self from the social scene. In this she does not have any gentlemen callers banging at her door. This worries her mother Amanda. She worries that her daughter Laura will become a lonely old maid. But Laura does leave the home during the day and explores the city. she takes long walks and goes to the musuem and visits the bird houses at the Zoo. She goes to the movies sometimes and she spends her afternoons in the Jewel Box, a big glass house where they raise the tropical flowers. She finds beauty and wonder in her little glass collection of ornaments so delicate like her.

As for her son Tom he had to take the role of the man of the house. He took up working in a warehouse basement making shoe's. "You think I want to spend fifty-five years down ther in that-celotex interior! with-fluorescent-tubes! Look! I'd rather somebody picked up a crowbar and battered out my brains-than go back mornings! For sixty-five dollars a month I give up all that I dream of doing and being ever!"(23) Amanda, Toms mother thinks that he is selfish. That all he thinks about is his self. But Tom states that if he were selfish he would be long gone just like his father was, to leave her and her sister to pick up the broken peices of their lives. Tom compares his life there at home as being nailed shut into a coffin. "You know it don't take much intelligence to get yourself into a nailed-up coffin, Laura. But who in the hell ever got himself out of one without removing one nail?"(27)

This is very sad to read. It is such a grey and somber life for the three of them. Amanda wants her daughter to find a man to marry to take care of her. That is the only way she see's that her daughters future will prosper. She never mentions that she is intersted in her son Tom finding someone to tie down with and make him happy. She only focuses on Tom helping find his sister Laura a gentlemen caller. And that mean while Tom should continue supporting them until then. "I mean that as soon as Laura has got somebody to take care of her, married, a home of her own,independent-why, then you'll be free to go wherever you please, on land, on sea, whichever way the wind blows you! But until that time you've got to look out for your sister. I don't say me because I'm old and don't matter! I say for your sister because she is young and dependent."(35) That is so sad that Tom has this preasure put on him, but also sad that Amanda feels that she does not matter to anyone. This is all the damage that the abscent father has put on his family. Three very lonely and lost people trying to find their way into the existence of the world ahead of them. In the end Tom does leave his mother and sister to live his life. Still a lonely life full of wonder and worry of what he left behind. Wow...            

Mariners Description....

Kevin G.
Jorden C.
Kelly F.
Audrey S.

The sailors are characterized and descriptions are as follows:

"the most showy and gallant figure, so far was apparel went , any where to be seen among the mustitude.  He wore profusion of ribbons on his garment ,and gold lace on his hat, which was also encircled by a gold chain and surmounted with a feather.  There was a sword at his side and a sword-cut on his forehead, which, by the arrangement of his hair , he seemed anxious reather to display than hide.  A lands man could hardly have worn this garb "(148)

 The ship-master was very showy just as Pearl was with her garments.  He seemed to make a connection with her because they both chose not to conforme with the norm of the people around them.



The swarthy-cheecked wild men of the ocean, as the Indians were of the land. p155
Their skin was dark and worn  and they were wild just as the Indians were. Puritains feared the Indians as Hester should fear the Sailors the same way.

They gazed wonderingly and admiringly at Pearl, as a flake of the sea-foam had taken the shape of a little maid, and were gifted with the soul of the sea-fire, that flashes beneath the prow in the night-time. p155
One of the seafaring men-the shipmaster, was smitten with Pearl's aspect that he attempted to lay hands upon her, with purpose to snatch a kiss. p155
This explains that the sailors seek female privlages aboared the ship. A virgin is tempting to the sailors that are rarely around women while out on sea so to them this brought  filthy thoughts.