Skip to main content

What allusions does Hawthorne make in The Scarlet Letter?

Because Hawthorne used so many allusions in the novel, the only way not to miss any is to read a well-footnoted edition such as the Norton Critical Edition. I will give you two examples from chapter one to get you started.


The second paragraph in the novel alludes to Sir Thomas Moore's 1515 Utopia, a fictional work with which both the colonists Hawthorne writes about and his readers in the nineteenth century would have been very familiar. Moore mean to contrast English or European society with what an ideal society would be like. Hawthorne's narrator points out the irony that a theocratic colony, a Utopia (ideal society), has decided one of its first buildings should be a prison. 


Another allusion—this one in the chapter's final paragraph—is a reference to Anne Hutchinson. Hawthorne's narrator speculates that the rose bush that grows beside the prison door "sprung up under [her] footsteps" as she entered the prison. Anne Hutchinson, like the fictional Hester Prynne, dared to defy the belief system of the paternalistic Puritan elders.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more