The Awakening and The Scarlet Letter: Comparative Analysis

Explain how the setting and mood are immediately established within the first few pages of each novel. Cite specific words and phrases that situate the reader.

In the novels, the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Awakening By Kate Chopin, the authors illustrate the mood and setting in the first chapter. In the Scarlet Letter, the mood had been set to be dull. Hawthorne had to pave the tone to be that way since it started in a prison. Starting you could tell this could be very dark. Since it started talking about long gloom hallways in prisons and the guards. However, the Awakening started with a family of four on a vacation. Edna Pontellier, her husband Leonce Pontellier, and her two sons, Raoul and Etienne. The mood is set off as happy since you assume vacation equals great times. However, as you go more in-depth the mood reveals something new. Edna truthfully hates her husband and her kids and would rather hook up with a new love interest. Overall, in both novels, the mood perceived is similar in a sense since they both have a poor beginning.

In the Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne has been imprisoned for Adultery. During her time, she birthed her daughter Pearl. From the first page, the mood interpreted was dark and dreary. It describes the prison as, “ A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments, and gray, steeple-crowned hats [...] was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.” This shows that the prison had been dusk. Anyone could assume that prison isn’t going to be the happiest place on earth. However, this prison interprets that gruel and dark. There is also another change of mood when the wild rose bush develops in the story it seems to brighten the mood as a change of hope for the community. “But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rosebush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.” Overall the mood changes from gruesome to something refreshing in a way. For the setting, the novel states, that they are in Puritan New England in the mid-17th century. When everyone has to follow certain rules and if you didn’t follow you would be punished. This is the mood and setting of the novel The Scarlet Letter.

In the Awakening, Edna Pontellier is an obedient wife and mother vacationing at Grand Isle with her family. Everything seems calm, it's a beautiful vacation spot, the kids are cute, and the husband is observant. This is how the story is set off, the setting The Awakening starts in the late nineteenth century on Grand Isle, off the coast of Louisiana; on the island of Chênière Caminada which is across the bay from Grand Isle and in the city of New Orleans.“The day was Sunday; the paper was a day old. The Sunday papers had not yet reached Grand Isle. He was already acquainted with the market reports, and he glanced restlessly over the editorials and bits of news which he had not had time to read before quitting New Orleans the day before.”(page#1 Chopin) To prove this, this shows where the story started. To add on, the mood which was interpreted was very serious. Why you can say that is because you think wow a fun family vacation but it ends up being a miserable vacation. Edna doesn’t seem engaged with her family, which was noticed when her husband stated,“...looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage.” (Chopin) She also has a new love interest and comes up with an independent answer to ditch them and try to start a new life. Overall, you can say this is a very serious matter since she leaves her whole family with her husband and starts a new life without them. This is the mood I have seen in the novel The Awakening.

To what extent does “self-preservation” play a role in the concept of human dignity in each of the novels? How can human dignity be defined? Why is dignity as essential to human survival as food and water?

Self-Preservation means caring for yourself and making the best options for you. Which are both novels both characters had different ways to help themselves. For Hester after going through a rough stage, she brought herself to the conclusion that she must keep on going with life and make the best of it. However, Edna after realizing all of the loss she had forced her to commit suicide. Dignity is tied into this because it's a sense of pride that a person can have towards themselves or others. Hester eventually was proud of her letter because she didn’t care what people have to think about her. Once again Edna couldn’t handle being lonely and trying to make her life better than it was before. To explain more, Self-preservation has a big role in human dignity and in the two novels, The Scarlet Letter and The Awakening.

In the Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne was given a difficult time since she had a child. She struggled with her community because she commits adultery. Although the seclusion is difficult for her, she maintains to keep her dignity. She continues to keep on going with her life, for example, caring for her child or her interest in sewing. To add, wearing her scarlet letter was a way of dignity as well. She didn’t care about what the townspeople had to say. She wore it with pride which shows self-preservation. Edna shows, “The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her, and concentrated at her bosom. It was almost intolerable to be borne. Of an impulsive and passionate nature, she had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely”(Hawthorne 34) Even after the humiliation of self-shaming, she tried to show her best self off by making herself a beautiful dress. After being given such a hard time about everything she had gone through. Edna found an abandoned house made it their own and lived the best life they could. After being given this burden she showed that it doesn’t matter what you have just made the best out of it. This explains self-preservation and dignity because she acted for herself. She tried to make her life the best it could be and didn't care what everyone had to say.

In the Awakening, anyone could describe Edna’s life as having no self-preservation. Why someone might say this because she had a difficult time in her life. Instead of trying to have a solution, she decided to commit suicide. Ways to lead her in this direction was the thought of her family. She couldn’t cope with the feeling of going back to her family. To prove this, “ She thought of Leonce and the children. They were a part of her life. But they need not have thought that they could possess her, body and soul”(Chopin 95) Moving on, she left her family and went straight for Robert. Eventually, there was no human being whom she wanted near her except Robert; and she even realized that the day would come when he, too, and the thought of him would melt out her existence, leaving her alone”(Chopin 94). However, eventually, that concluded. After losing Robert all of that negativity and hatred in her life led her to believe that leaving the world and killing herself would do her kids and everyone else better, than staying in it and living unhappy. For the children and her husband this happened, Edna lacked self-preservation and thought death was the best option for herself. Therefore, Edna did not have any self-preservation or human dignity, which lead her to unhappiness and suicide.

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In a well-organized response, discuss the title of each work, explain the title’s significance in relation to the novel as a whole and consider what that means for the protagonist, and for the other characters in the piece.

The novels, the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Awakening by Kate Chopin, both books have very important meanings behind their titles. Hawthorne made the title very self-explanatory since the novel is based on the Scarlet Letter on Hester's chest. Also the struggles she had gone through with this being a part of her life. For the Awakening, Chopin described Edna’s awakening throughout the book. Her awakening would be described as her going through multiple life changes and things failing.

In the Scarlet Letter, the title ties up with Hester Prynne’s life. Minister Dimmesdale and Hester committed adultery which led to Hester having a baby girl named Pearl. From committing this crime Hester was sentenced to shame and was imprinted with the “ SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.”(Hawthorne 32) Since she committed this “crime” she was imprinted with the letter A, which indicated that she had to live with shame. Knowing that she would live with this shame every day, she still tried to live her best life. She was really into sewing and making her clothes for herself and others. She also enjoyed spending time with Pearl even though she had a devilish side. Another person who had a scarlet letter was Minister Dimmesdale. On the day that Hester had received hers. He had given it to himself. “Some affirmed that the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, on the very day when Hester Prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course of penance..,” This also proves that the scarlet letter was a main purpose in the novel since it appeared many times. Overall, the Scarlet Letter was significant since it showed shame but could be changed into something different as well.

In the Awakening, the titles of the books indicate the awakening that Edna will go through throughout the book. The awakening starts with Edna being very unhappy about her life with her husband and children. She doesn’t care for herself, instead, she provides for her family and that’s all she does. She finally comes to the realization that she needs to let go of her family and her independence. To support this, “In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her. This may seem like a ponderous weight of wisdom to descend upon the soul of a young woman of twenty-eight—perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman. But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such a beginning! How many souls perish in its tumult”(Chopin 12). This proves that Edna wanted to get her independence and she stood by that. Her awakening finally commenced when she decided to let herself drown. Overall, this proves that Edna's awakening began when she left her family. She started a new life and tried to work with it. But eventually, it failed. But then she continued that awakening when she realized that this life wasn’t what she wanted and ended it

Is there any nobility in Dimmesdale and/or Edna’s deaths? Does the idea of martyrdom apply to either one? Should we think of their actions as heroic/noble?

In the novels, the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Awakening by Katie Chopin. In both of the deaths of Dimmesdale and Edna, we expected all the pain they went through. From knowing the books anyone could assume that these characters are not noble or heroic. I say this because both of them could of went through the pain in an easier way. Sometimes it’s not easy to go through those struggles but there’s always a way to get through it.

In the Scarlet Letter, the death of Aruther Dimmsdale was very foreseen. He had committed a “crime” with Hester Prynne who was a married woman. They had a child named Pearl, which means they had perpetrated Adultery. To protect Dimmesdale's identity, Hester decided not to tell the town who the mystery man was. So, instead of Dimmesdale revealing himself and taking the punishment. He decided to keep on living with this sin on his mind. Dimmesdale's guilt finally overcomes him and he finally tells his town the truth about his act of adultery. He was so ashamed of his crime, that he punished himself for it, for 7 years. He would torture himself in so many ways, for example, “His inward trouble drove him to practices, more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome, than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred. In Mr. Dimmesdale’s secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his shoulders; laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more pitilessly, because of that bitter laugh. It was his custom, too, as it has been that of many other pious Puritans, to fast,—not, however, like them, in order to purify the body and render it the fitter medium of celestial illumination,—but rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance.”(page #81 Hawthorne). This proves that he suffered from keeping his secret and instead of ending this nightmare, he continued to punish himself. Instead of revealing his truth, he kept it and that has consequences. From keeping this secret I wouldn’t consider his Nobel heroic. He did save some time for Hester and Pearl, but he put himself through so much pain that it wasn’t worth it. For that, he told everyone about his confidential secret to taking the sin away from his hurting heart. “At last!—at last!—I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood; here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me, at this dreadful moment, from groveling down upon my face! Lo, the scarlet letter that Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever her walk hath been,—wherever, so miserably burdened, she may have hoped to find repose,—it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repugnance round about her. But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!”(Hawthorne) This proves that he committed to his sin after 7 long hard years. In those 7 years, Pearl didn’t have a father and now he was going to die. In my opinion, he could have committed earlier and might have had a chance with his family. Overall, this is if Minister Dimmesdale is noble or not.

For the Awakening, Edna’s death is described as her swimming out to sea until her arms can no longer support her, and she ends up drowning. This won’t be considered noble because she cracked under pressure from the real world. She couldn’t handle all of the drama surrounding her. For example, Robert broke up with her or struggle she had with her kids. Everything that was happening knocked her too far. Edna became too distressed that she wasn’t acting like herself anymore. Everything that she had dreamed off didn’t come true. For instance, her dream of dating Robert and her passion for art. When you hear that someone’s life is going wrong, you assume that they are going to get through it. But in Edna’s case, she couldn’t handle all of the pain. She stated, “He did not know; he did not understand. He would never understand. Perhaps Doctor Mandelet would have understood if she had seen him—but it was too late; the shore was far behind her, and her strength was gone.”(page#95 Chopin) She believed that nobody cared for her anymore. Which drove her to commit suicide. So when you ask if Edna's death was noble you might say no because after being given an opportunity at a new life she turned it down.