Scarlet Letter Essays (954 words) - English-language Films

Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorn begins by dealing with Hester Prynne's crime and sentence. She shows herself to be a proud woman in how she embroiders her bright red "A" with golden thread to be displayed to her community. She is a skilled seamstress and she doesn't seem, despite her disgrace, to be afraid to show that about herself. When she walked down the street from the prison to the scaffold, the narrator talks about her realization of how foolish and cowardly she would be if she were to try to hide her mark with the product of her sin, her baby girl. She carries off her initial sentence of being showcased on the scaffold with as much dignity as possible for anyone in such a situation. The reactions of the people were interesting to me; their strong feelings against Hester being permitted to live startled me. I realized what a sort of culture and religion ruled in those times. Also, I couldn't quite imagine being in Hester's position with the kind of disgrace she was faced with. The narrator describes Hester as totally losing her womanly appeal and beauty over the seven years of condemnation. Roger Chillingworth confused me greatly until near the conclusion of the book. When he visited Hester I was surprised that he wanted to treat her instead of trying to harm her, but then later realized his motives. He wanted no one in the community to learn that there was any relationship between Hester and himself at all; harming her would have raised suspicions. This was vital to his plan of revenge on Mr. Dimmesdale. At first I thought that Chillingworth might have tried to seek revenge against Hester, but then came to the conclusion that he viewed her public disgrace as more punishment than he could ever have managed. Chillingworth's revenge was very clever. Everyone in the town knew and respected him and this helped him gain "friendship" with Dimmesdale. Although I didn't understand at first that Chillingworth was actually poisoning Dimmesdale while he was supposed to be treating him, this aspect of his revenge made more sense, as I got further into the book. The cruelty of it was terrible, but it accomplished his goal of torturing him while he should have taken his rightful punishment for the crime he committed from the beginning. My opinion of Arthur Dimmesdale changed quite a bit from when I was first introduced to him until the end of the book. At first I thought that he was a cold heartless, cowardly man for not taking his part of the blame in the two-sided crime of adultery. His actions forced Hester to take all of the disgrace on herself. I believe that her disgrace was increased because there was no second person to take some of it. The townspeople looked at her as though she had committed the crime all by herself. The amount of guilt that Dimmesdale carried with him for not confessing right away was phenomenal. The longer he waited, the harder it became for him to confess, the more his guilt built up, and the easier it was for Chillingworth to torture him. The fact that he became physically sick with guilt amazed me, especially since I didn't realize that part of his sickness was credited to Chillingworth until later. His vigil and meeting with Hester and Pearl in the wee hours of the morning on the scaffold was the turning point of my impression of him. Pearl's role in the story, I felt, was the scarlet letter come to life. This is shown in several ways. She is a product of what Hester's red "A" represents and is usually dressed in shades of scarlet. She is described as having elfish qualities about her. Elves are most commonly thought to be mischievous and evil, which are both characteristics of the adultery the scarlet letter represents. In my opinion, the most interesting aspect of Pearl's character is her reaction to seeing her mother without her brand and cap when she meets with Mr. Dimmesdale in the forest. She acted almost as if she didn't consider Hester her mother without the scarlet "A" on her dress, like she loved the "A" more than Hester. The conclusion of the story began with Hester's decision to reveal Roger Chillingworth's identity to Mr. Dimmesdale. This decision is arrived at after Hester tries to convince Chillingworth to end his revenge on Dimmesdale. His refusal to do so convinces Hester of what she needs to

Patrilineal vs. Matrilineal Succession

Patrilineal vs. Matrilineal Succession Patrilineal societies, those that connect generations through the father’s line, dominate the world’s culture. And most sociologists would argue that we still live for the most part under a patriarchy, in which men serve as heads of almost every important social, cultural, and political institution. But a few cultures throughout history were matrilineal and therefore connected generations through the mother’s line. These cultures included many Native Americans, certain South Americans, and the Spanish and French Basque. And although matrilineal law is not codified in the Torah, the Jewish Oral Tradition as written in the Mishnah outlines an overwhelmingly matrilineal society: a child of a Jewish mother is always Jewish, regardless of the faith of the father. Patrilineal Succession For most of history, patrilineal succession (a patrilyny) dominated family units. Names, property, titles, and other valuables were traditionally passed on through a male line. Females did not inherit, unless there were no male heirs. Even then, distant male relatives would inherit over close female relatives like daughters.  Property passed from father to daughter indirectly, usually through dowries on a daughter’s marriage, which was paid to and came under the control of her husband or her husband’s father or another male relative. Matrilineal Succession In matrilineal succession, women inherited titles and names from their mothers, and passed them down to their daughters. Matrilineal succession did not necessarily mean that women held the power and property and titles. Sometimes, men in matrilineal societies were the ones who inherited, but they did so through their mother’s brothers, and passed their own inheritances along to their sisters’ children. The Role of Women in Promoting Patrilyny While most theorists believe that patriarchal systems came to dominate both Western and non-Western cultures through the use of force, social anthropologist Audrey Smedley’s research with the Birom people of Nigeria led her to posit that it might, in fact, be women themselves who willingly invented many features of the patrilyny. Furthermore, she argues, men’s roles are actually more constricted than women’s roles, and that women have significant decision-making within such organization. Moving Away From the Patrilyny In many ways, modern western culture has adopted more matrilineal-like structures, especially in poor communities where men are marginalized for other cultural reasons- race or immigration status, for instance.  The modern American imprisonment of a large percentage of the black male population means that many children do not have as much contact with fathers and other male relatives. So too have various property rights laws over the past several hundred years served to diminish the control that men have over women’s inherited property and women’s right to choose who inherits their property. In western cultures, it has become more common for women to keep their birth names after marriage, even if a substantial percentage of those women give their husband’s name to their children. And even if adhering to some version of  Salic law  has long prevented royal daughters from becoming  queens regnant, many monarchies have or are beginning to abolish the strict patrilineal assumptions in inheriting royal titles and power.