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Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter: Shining Light On Personal Affliction

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The Scarlet Letter: Shining light on personal affliction
Introduction
Hawthorne’s exploratory view into deeper psychological realms is ever present in his masterpiece “The Scarlet Letter”. In a time period that was unaccustomed to the questioning of religious authority, Hawthorne placed specific unspoken sentiments at the forefront of his novel. Controversial topics such as punishment versus forgiveness and sin and judgment were broached as a means of conveying the persisting contempt he held towards the Puritan way of life. Moreover, Hawthorne examined more than the overt, obvious effects sin had on an individual; He analyzed its consequences and significances when one attempted to surreptitiously conceal sin. It is the latter which I …show more content…
A literary genius, Poe, caused the faint of heart to shudder and the squeamish to tremble. And this he could do succinctly as illustrated in “The Cask of Amontillado”. On the surface, this short story appears to only be concerned with mere revenge over the possible imaginary slights committed by Fortunato against Montressor. However, if you look underneath the cloak of retribution you find darker, deeper motives that may explain Montressor’s radical behavior.
Analysis
Left to his own devices we find Montressor rationalizing sinister thoughts of retaliation against a fellow citizen, Fortunato, eventually reaching the conclusion that he must commit the dastardly deed of immolation if he is to regain his injured pride. This story is not as simple as it first appears to be. There exists a manifestation of different emotions which have developed over time for both characters. The aforementioned emotions could also be regarded as sinful in nature, and if left unchecked create situations where more serious sinful acts could occur as demonstrated in this

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