The Scarlet Letter And Bartleby The Scrivener - 1238 Words

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener† by Herman Melville, the two main characters face conflicts with society. In the â€Å"Scarlet Letter†, Hester Prynne, a young woman, is forced to bear a symbol of her affair with Reverend Dimmesdale on her chest and face public humiliation for the rest of her life. â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener† is a story about a man who is a misfit, struggling to fit into society as a scrivener for Wall Street, who eventually dies in a prison. Both characters struggle with an oppressive society, rebelling in their own ways, and yet are shunned for their own opinions and human tendencies. Although both were written in the 1850’s, many of the flaws and hypocrisies are found in today’s society, many of which are evident in modern day education systems. Some may say that society corrects problems and encourages the improvement in people, but, to become better by society’s terms means losing what it is to be human. Hence, society is immoral as it expects too much of humans, enforces strict laws that force people to lash out, and exaggerates the natural tendencies of humans to be seen as evil. First, The Scarlet Letter is an example of how society’s impossible moral codes negatively affect the people and cause them to lash out and be viewed as beasts. The Puritan society expects too much in people. For example, everyone is expected to be completely pure, but no one, not even the ministers, can live up to the standards. When HesterShow MoreRelatedThe Scarlet Letter And Bartleby, The Scrivener1251 Words   |  6 Pages In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne narrates a Romantic story of a young woman in the Puritan Era who is convicted of adultery and has to face being a social outcast. Herman Melville examines the story of Bartleby, a copyist who mysteriously refuses to work and is, therefore, put in jail. In The Scarlet Letter and Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street, Hawthorne and Melville use the characterization of Hester Prynne and Bartleby and their independent behavior to critique the effectRead MoreHerman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne Show the Unbridgeable Gap Between Human Desires and Human Possibilities and the Mixture of Good and Evil in Even the Loftiest of Human Motives987 Words   |  4 Pagesand Melville In both works, â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener† and The Scarlet Letter, Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne show the unbridgeable gap between human desires and human possibilities and the mixture of good and evil in even the loftiest of human motives. In â€Å"Bartleby the Scrivener† by Herman Melville, this idea is shown by how the Lawyer keeps Bartleby as one of his employers, even though Bartleby does not deserve to still be working. In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this ideaRead MoreRelationship Between Society And The Individual2194 Words   |  9 Pageshas always been a relationship between the individual and society that is reflected in the written pieces of each time, revealing the connection between oneself and the collective spanning across the centuries. ‘The Scarlet Letter’, written in a Puritan world, and ‘Bartleby, The Scrivener’, written in capitalist America, are two key examples of literature that expose, deta il and discuss the relationship between society and the individual in American history. Alexis de Tocqueville (1835), a French politicalRead MoreIndividualism In Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter And The Scrivener1699 Words   |  7 Pagesindividualism. Within this movement, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Herman Melville’s Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street, the characters set at the center of their respective narratives both challenge societal prejudices through actions different from the social norm. Hawthorne’s protagonist, Hester Prynne, is met with disgust and disdain from the Puritan community after committing only one sin; contrarily, Melville’s Bartleby is first met with awe and love from his boss on WallRead MoreBrief Survey of American Literature3339 Words   |  14 Pagesbetween Native Americans (or American Indians) and European explorers and settlers who had both religious and territorial aspirations - Native American oral literature / oral tradition - European explorers’ letters, diaries, reports, etc., such as Christopher Columbus’s letters about his voyage to the â€Å"New world†. - Anglo (New England) settlers’ books, sermons, journals, narratives, and poetry Native American / American Indian oral literature / oral tradition creation storiesï ¼Ë†Ã¨ µ ·Ã¦ º Ã§ ¥Å¾Ã¨ ¯ Ã¯ ¼â€° Read MoreBelonging Essay4112 Words   |  17 PagesThe curious incident of the dog in the night-time AF, APB YA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curious_Incident_of_the_Dog_in_the_Night-time Hardy, Thomas Jude, the obscure AF Hardy, Thomas Tess of the D’Ubervilles AF Hawthorne, Nathaniel The scarlet letter AF Hemingway, Ernest, A clean well-lighted place, in Complete short stories AF Hinton, S.E. Outsiders YA Home and away: Australian stories of belonging and alienation ed. Bennett, Bruce AF Hosseini, Khaled The kite runner AF YA http://en.wikipedia