Lavender's AP Lit Class Blog
Monday, October 22, 2012
Scarlet Letter Essay
I am wanting to write my paper with a main focus on Pearl. In the begining of the book we see that woman are being oppressed and we read through the issues that Hester goes through. I am including how Hester has lived her life in shame and sorrow. I will explain how poeple see Pearl as the "devil child" then later the reader see's that she is truly the new start to womanhood. She is taking her life to a different level then Hester. Becoming the woman Hester never was, "Pearl was not only alive, but married, and happy, and mindful of her mother, and that she would most joyfully have entertained that sad and lonely mother at her fireside."
If anyone could comment that would be awesome! Need some help and ideas here (:
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Pearl is a great topic, Maddie--but before you can figure out what your thesis is (that is, how Pearl helps in some way to support the 'meaning of the work as a whole') you need to go back and identify all those passages related to Pearl, re-read them, and then see what you can come up with (for example, perhaps you can consider the transformation of Pearl together with the transformation of the letter A; or, you might consider how Pearl--the only character who has a 'happy' ending--is also the only major character who doesn't engage in any form of hypocrisy). Again, start by going back to the text.
ReplyDeleteYou could create a timeline in a sense of pearls transformation throughout the book relating to some of the other themes such as the A.
ReplyDelete-Pearl is three months old when her mother carries her from prison to the scaffold where Hester is publicly shamed for her adultery.
-The governor questions Pearl when she is a few years old. He wants to see if she knows her catechism. But Pearl is stubborn and uncooperative. She fails to respond the way she’s supposed to. The explanation? It is the demon in her!
-When she is seven years old, Pearl refuses to kiss the Reverend Dimmesdale until he has publicly acknowledged his relationship to her and to Hester.
-Pearl refuses to come to her mother if she is not wearing the scarlet A. She won’t recognize her as her mother without that symbol.
-Pearl points out Dimmesdale’s guilty habit of putting his hand over his heart. She wonders what he has done.
-Roger Chillingworth leaves his estate to her upon his death within a year of Dimmesdale’s dramatic confession.
-Pearl accompanies her mother to the Old World. The narrator surmises that she marries well and has children, since Hester is observed embroidering a baby garment many years later, when Hester returns to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Maddie,
ReplyDeleteI think you are off to a good start.
I am a little confused about the begining part and talking about Hesters sorrow and how it relates to Pearl.
I like the idea of showing how different Pearl is becoming from her mother, and how she is trying to live her own life.