Abstract "The Scarlet Letter" by Nethaniel Hawthorne contains three scaffold scenes, each of which is significant in thematic and character development. This paper is organized in essentially chronological order, elaborating first upon Hester's public shame in the beginning, to Dimmesdale's death in the final pages of the novel. Through a multitude of quotes intermixed with plot summary, this essay demonstrates how the puritanical scaffold represents exposed, raw truth in a world of falsity.
From the Paper "In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the town scaffold scenes represent truth and reality in a world of deception. In the puritanical town of Boston, Massachusetts, religious piety often masks sinful human nature. By putting up a scaffold, the Puritan towns created a place for revealing the inevitable nature of sin. A scaffold in itself symbolizes exposing someone for who they really are; all outer layers are torn away, exposing the sinful humanity inside. The scaffold in The Scarlet Letter has this effect throughout the novel; visited three times, on each occasion the main characters are forced to face the reality of sin and all its manifestations."
Abstract During the nineteenth century, especially toward its conclusion, women were beginning to break out from their usual molds, and perceptive authors used that fact to create some outstanding dramas and novels. Thomas Hardy was one, having written "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" and Elizabeth Gaskell wrote "Ruth". There are many ways to look at these two novels; however, one interesting link makes them worth investigating. The paper shows that this link is the presence and the absence of a mother figure that might have changed the denouement of both women - a happy, peaceful conclusion for Ruth in her passing, and a tragic one for Tess, hounded by men seeking revenge for her stabbing of her seducer.
From the Paper "Hardy, a male in the Victorian age where sex was all done behind closed doors and shuttered windows, as if it never existed at all, took umbrage at the mores of men and women whose lives would be shattered by revelations of premarital sex. Ruth had no mother to comfort her during her distress, having been forcibly removed from Mr. Bellingham. There was no mother to run to when it was time for the baby to be born. And yet, near the end of "Tess", when she might have needed her mother more than a bland Alec, her mother was distant, and not at all communicative with those who wanted information about Tess' whereabouts."
