Hester's Shame

"She could no longer brow from the future, to help her through the present grief. To-morrow would bring its own trial with it; so would the next day, and so would the next; each its own trial" (71). This quote caught my attention when reading because it showed how Hester felt miserable and believed that the rest of her life was going to worse and that each day would be filled with a different grief. Although Hester still had her new born child, it seemed of little reassurance to Hester that she still had someone close to her who she could love. Hester also feels incredibly isolated and alone with no one to understand her.  

VAP word: Sojourn (pg.56)

Late at night she sojourned to a nearby hotel for she was getting tired after driving for so long.

Matt's Scarlet Letter quote response

"Hester Prynne had been standing on her pedestal,still with a fixed gaze towards the stranger; so fixed a gaze,that, at moments of intense absorption, all other objects in the visible world seemed to vanish, leaving only him and her"(57).  The reason I found this quote interesting was because when Hester was being stared at everything seemed to stop.  her eyes were affixed on one person amongst a huge crowd.  The letter on her shirt and the infant in her arms proved to be assurance of all her wrong doings. This is a very unique situation because Hester felt safe in this situation.  All of the people between her and the man provided a barrier.

Throng, Edifice

The throng of people protesting in the town square grew and grew, until there were people packed in every inch of the town.

The edifice loomed eerily in the distance, the large building's shadow cast a gloomy darkness on the town.  

Hawthorne Vs. The Puritans

Hawthorne being a very strong believer in Romanticism, has much different beliefs than the Puritans. The Romantics believed in individualism. The Puritans however believed that God has already chosen your fate in whether you are going to Heaven or Hell and that you life is just time to prepare for the after life.

Romantics (vs. the Puritans)

The Romantics was from 1830-1870(ish)
They focused on intution, imagination, individualism, and nature.  Nature was their inspiration, the past was their wisdom, and the common man is their hero.  The Romantics wanted to embrace the spiritual root that was planted by the Purtians, and combine it with nature (the Romantics find God in nature).  The Puritans wanted nothing to do with this, they repented this idea and believed that nature was savage.

Hawthorne would have felt the same way all the Romantics felt about the Puritans.  They completely clashed ideas.  The Puritans believed that no matter what you did throughout your lifetime, it was predetermined whether you were going to Heaven, or to Hell and that was God's choice to make.  However, since Hawthorne and the Romantics deeply believed in individualism, they most likely did not agree with God deciding where you were headed after death.  Even the basic beliefs of the Purtians and Romantics were conflicting, because the Puritans believed in God and promoting their religion, while the Romantics stressed on imagination.

Hawthore and the Puritans

Explore how Hawthorne (super Romantic) would feel about the Puritans based on what you learned today. 

Hawthorne would not agree with the Puritans.  He would not have the same ideas that they so because he believed in individualism, imagination and intuition. These beliefs were the opposite of what the puritans believed in. Instead the puritans focused on how God had a predetermined fate for you, before you were born, and that there wasn't anything that you could do in your life to change that. This caused the puritans to obsess about anything that they did,not knowing whether you were going to heaven or hell. These two beliefs contradict one another because one is saying to be your own person and the other is forcing you to do what everyone else is doing.