Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Monday, December 15, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Hester and Arthur
What do you think of Hester and Arthur Dimmesdale? Who do you like better? Why? What do you think of the way they react to their situations, Pearl, Roger, the townspeople? How does Hawthorne want us to feel about them? Why?
Setting Symbolism
What's the significance of the setting in ch. 16 & 17 (Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest)? How do the characters interact with the setting and in what ways is the interplay between characters and nature symbolic?
Who's Responsible?
In ch. 14 Roger Chillingworth says to Hester, "'And waht am I now?'...'I have already told thee what I am! A fiend! Who made me so?'" Hester responds that it was her who made Roger a "fiend". Agree or disagree.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
More on allegory
Discuss the allegorical significance of the scaffold, Dimmesdale's pain, the meteor shower, or any settings, objects or people in these chapters.
How has Hester changed?
Re-read ch. 13 and discuss how Hester has changed and what these changes indicate about Hawthorne's attitudes about Puritan society.
Foreshadowing
After discovering the identity of Pearl's father, look back through Ch. 9 and 10 and discuss the evidence pointing to and foreshadowing his identity. Add quotations in support of your answer and explain how the quotation indicates Hester's cohort.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Scarlet Letter
Hawthorne does not want us to like Hester's community. They are portayed as a crowd of dreary looking people, who act cruely toward Hester and Pearl. They automatically judge her without ever thinking of what could have made her act they way she did, or what she could have been affected by in her past to influence her decisions. The crowd shows no sympathy at all, and is quick to judge and ridicule. By doing so the Puritans contradict their own beliefs by being so quick to judge Hester, and also believing and preaching that God is their only Judge in life. Hester takes their redicule quitely rather than lashing back out at the crowd, or breaking down crying and begging for mercy. She remains strong and she endures their redicule and harsh judgements. I feel that by keeping her composure under such circumstances is admirable, and honorable. I admire her, and feel sorry for her at the same time due to the crowds torment and the situation she is stuck in. On a universal scale Hawthorne could be relating the Puritan society to how communities treat individuals in the sense that they all are extremely judgemental and stereotypical. People make assumptions about other people without even knowing the person or their intentions for anything they have done. People are too quick to judge and to make the assumption that they know a person and have a right to ridicule them or personally judge their actions without knowing their intent or motive.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Puritan Society
How does Hawthorne want us to react to Hester's community? How are the Puritans and their town portrayed? Give examples to support your answer. How do you feel about how Hester handles herself in the first chapters? Do you admire her, feel sorry for her, or what? Why? Is Hawthorne making any more universal statements about how communities treat individuals?
The Scarlet Letter as Allegory
Discuss the characters of Pearl and Roger Chillingworth. How are they described? How are we supposed to react to and feel about them? What does the author intend them to represent?
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Saint Marie and Leopolda
Why would Marie just go along with what Leopolda told the other sisters? Why wouldn't Marie want to get back at Leopolda?
What do you think of Leopolda?
What do you think of her? What do you think made her act that way toward Marie? What do you think set her off?
"Saint Marie" from Love Medicine
Why came over Marie the possessed her to push Sister Leopolda into the furnance, and after doing so why did she have mixed feelings?
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Saint Marie
were both marie and sister leopolda partially possesed by the dark one? if leopolda was not then what drove her to abuse marie and lie about the stigmata?
"Saint Marie"
Why doesn't Marie run away from the convent after she is physically harmed by Leopolda?
"Saint Marie" from Love Medicine
On page 82, what does Marie mean when she says "evil was a common thing I trusted"?
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Seeing Beyond...
In writing about the Native American perception of time and space, N. Scott Momaday says that he "sees into the immediate landscape, he perceives a now and future dimension that is altogether remote, yet nonetheless real and inherent within it, a quality of evanescence and evolution, a state at once of being and of becoming....nothing of the scene is lost upon him. In the integrity of his vision he is wholly in possession of himself and of the world around him: he is quintessentially alive."
He continues to critique the modern (and western) vision of the world: "Our eyes, it may be, have been trained too long upon the superficial, and artificial, aspects of our environment: we do not see beyond the buildings and billboards that seem at times to be the monuments of our civilization, and consequently we fail to see into the nature and meaning of our own humanity."
Have you ever experienced a "seeing" experience like the one he describes above? Do you agree or disagree with his assessment of our current state of "seeing"?
He continues to critique the modern (and western) vision of the world: "Our eyes, it may be, have been trained too long upon the superficial, and artificial, aspects of our environment: we do not see beyond the buildings and billboards that seem at times to be the monuments of our civilization, and consequently we fail to see into the nature and meaning of our own humanity."
Have you ever experienced a "seeing" experience like the one he describes above? Do you agree or disagree with his assessment of our current state of "seeing"?
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