Three American Novels
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The Scarlet Letter is probably his best-known work and is a novel about the consequences in Puritan society of a seduction. The seduction has taken place perhaps a year before the opening of the novel, but the fact of the seduction is incontrovertible because of the baby Hester Prynne has borne. This fact is Pearl, and her existence is thus a statement of what has occurred, a reminder of the community response, and a challenge to the community which holds that nothing good comes from an act of moral failure. The child's mother is the only person being punished for this sin, though this is a sin that could not have been committed alone. Hester will not reveal the name of her partner in sin, and she bears her public burdens with stoicism and courage. Her sin is a sin of passion, but this passion is never evoked directly in the novel except in the personality of the child. It is less the seduction itself than the response to it that is important in the novel. Dimmesdale suffers greatly because of this seduction, a sin he committed with greater knowledge than that of Hester and with greater culpability as a result. His is the true hypocrisy, for he is a man of God and the spiritual guide for the community. In addition, he is one of the instruments of her punishment. Not only is he a clergyman who should remain above such things in the eyes of society, but he is also living a lie by allowing Hester to be punished while he remains a secret sinner. Yet the greatest sin
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deeper agenda. Ishmael is also on a spiritual journey, and he is perhaps the most aware individual on the ship. His specific purpose in going to sea is to learn about life and to achieve a closer connection with the natural world and the world of man both. The world of the Pequod becomes for him a microcosm reflecting the different kinds of people and problems in the wider world. Ahab gets all of these people and more to go with him on his primary journey to find Moby Dick, and he does so primarily through the force of his personality. In Chapter CIX, which depicts a meeting between Ahab and Starbuck, it is clear that Ahab is pressing others to follow him by assuming a mask of absolute certainty when in fact he has his doubts.
The realistic descriptions of whaling emphasize that life is a dangerous business where you have to know what you are doing if you are to survive. The sighting of the spirit-spout in Chapter LI shows that the world is filled with mysteries we can only dimly perceive and rarely understand. The complexities of the universe are indicated as Ishmael describes the cutting up of the whale in Chapter LXVII. Melville links the specifics of whaling with events in life, as in the discussion of fast-fish a
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Hester Prynne, Huck Jim, Moby Dick, Dimmesdale Chillingworth, Freedom Huck, Chillingworth Chillingworth, LXXXVII Ishmael's, Captain Ahab, Huckleberry Finn, LXVII Melville, moby dick, sets apart, world world, ship goes, education huck, spiritual journey, sin sin, sin committed, positive reaction,
Approximate Word count = 1774
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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