Lavender's AP Lit Class Blog
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Amber's Post
Ok, greetings everyone. I have two ideas of what I would like to write about, and would really appreciate input and feedback. My first idea is to write about the author’s view/ opinion on romance, and flow into the idea that romance is self detrimental either (1) in a society without moral relativism (some transcendental Nature vs Society ideas there), or (2) including feminist views that men are too weak to sustain a romance. I could write about either of these examples for how romance is portrayed as unattainable, or I could write my whole paper about moral relativism and the individual vs society.
Quotes:
“It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object.”
“Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!”
“She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness. Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers - stern and wild ones - and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.”
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Amber,
ReplyDeleteSorry I didn't get to respond to your post earlier, and I'll be anxious to see what you come up with on Friday. Personally, I like the idea of how men are ultimately too weak to rise to romance. I'm interested how, in Hawthorne's novel, this is predicated in part by gender. Hester, as a pregnant female, has no chance to hide her 'sin'; Dimmesdale, by contrast (and as he acknowledges in his address from the balcony) does have the opportunity to keep his part in the affair a secret). This begs the question: if Hester hadn't become pregnant, would she, too, have kept the affair a secret, or would she have pressed Dimmesdale to have them reveal it to the world. The situation with Chillingworth also relates to gender because, as a dutiful daughter, Hester was given no choice but to marry a man whom she didn't love, but whom her parents pressed upon her (it's notable, too, that Chilingworth's motives in the marriage were entirely selfish (go back and look at his words during The Interview chapter).