Puritan Perspective and Literary Techniques in The Scarlet

Puritan Perspective and Literary Techniques in The Scarlet Letter

Puritan Beliefs • Theocracy: religious and political law are the same • Predestination: God has predetermined who is saved and who is damned • God has a plan for all humankind. Good will prevail over evil, and Christ will defeat Satan. • Goals: cleanse society of corrupt, sinful actions/vices and experience “conversion” to lead a righteous life

Predestination • Innate “depravity” : humans are innately sinful (original sin) • Unconditional “election”: Salvation in reserved for those chosen by God • “Irresistible Grace”: Good works do not save an individual. ” An “elect” group of “saints” possess God’s saving grace

Questions to Explore • Why did followers of Puritanism accept this doctrine? – Need for order, certainty, spiritual security • Effects on Puritan lives? – Committed to shaping society and government into what God would desire - Strove to live godly lives—disciplined, sin-free - Living a righteous life was the EFFECT of being one of God’s chosen - To ensure salvation (not to gain or earn), Puritans attempted to display signs of purity as evidence of God’s saving grace. • How does Hawthorne challenge Puritan beliefs?

Literary Devices • Descriptive Details • Imagery • Irony • Characterization • Figurative Language • Allusion • Symbols

Diction: !Word patterns and individual words – vocabulary and its degree of difficulty, complexity, abstractness, etc. – “The wretched minister!” (202) – “Hester… must take up again the burden of her ignominy, and the minister the hollow mockery of his good name!” (179) !Imagery – descriptive language and figures of speech used to convey abstract ideas in vivid, innovative ways

Point of View: !Omniscient: able to recount the action thoroughly and reliably, and able to enter the mind of any character at any time; can conceal as well as reveal at will. !Direct address: “Satan, that afternoon, had surely led the poor girl… and thrown her into the pathway of this solely tempted, or – shall we not rather say? this lost and desperate man” (200). “we blush to tell it…” (201).

Paradox: !A statement that seems selfcontradictory or nonsensical on the surface, but may be seen to contain an underlying truth. – Dimmesdale’s attempt at categorizing himself as a sinner, and the people’s reverent response

Allusion: !An indirect reference to a person, event, statement or theme found in literature, the other arts, history, mythology, religion or popular culture – “Another man had returned out of the forest: a wiser one; with a knowledge of hidden mysteries which the simplicity of the former never could have reached. A bitter kind of knowledge that!” (203)

Symbols: !Something that, although of interest in its own right, stands for or suggests something larger and more complex – The Scaffold – Roger Chillingworth – Pearl – The Scarlet Letter – The Forest – The Brook

Themes: • Consider questions, rather than answers • Psychological novel – What aspects of human nature does Hawthorne focus on? What do we learn or observe about those aspects?