The Scarlet Letter Chapter 5

Why does Hester choose to stay in the town?


Hester Prynne did not leave the Puritan village, because "She could no longer borrow from the future, to help her through the present grief." That means she could not trust in the future, not be sure to get better.
Furthermore, "there is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghost-like, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it. Her sin, her ignominy, were the roots which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a new birth, with stronger assimilations than the first, had converted the forest-land, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne's wild and dreary, but life-long home." That means that she has a special feeling that she should stay here in her "new" home, no matter what has happened.
Another reason might be "All other scenes of earth--even that village of rural England, where happy infancy and stainless maidenhood seemed yet to be in her mother's keeping, like garments put off long ago--were foreign to her, in comparison. The chain that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but never could be broken." She says that the chains or the connections to the village where she was born and has lived for her whole childhood are broken, that she does not feel to have a real relation to her village in her home county.
Finally "she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom." That means that she feels guilty and wants to get her punishment at the place where she did her crime. And she knows that she will experience a lot of mortification.


How does the community treat her?


The community treats Hester very bad. She had to live in a very poor shelter away from other homes. She had no single friend. Later, the people of Boston tried to take her child away from her. She was treated as a victim with mortification,animosity and contempt. Having a child without marriage or from another man than her husband was a very bad crime for this time, especially for Puritans. Hester was excluded from her people.

The Scarlet Letter

Hester Prynne is a woman who is convicted and condemned by her " people" - puritan settlers who settled in the "New World" and have strict rules in their beliefs. She is very worried about her baby for whom she doesn't really see a future. She probably loves the father of her baby very much as she does not want to speak out his name since he would be probably imprisoned, too.
Roger Prynne (Chillingworth) is the husband of Hester Prynne and is a lot older than her. Even though he knew Hester didn't love him he married her (probably because he deeply loved her). When he found out about Hester's child, that is not from him, he got upset and deeply hurt. Therefore he decided to find the father of the child and probably to kill him. After telling his wife Hester his identity he made her swear not to tell it to anyone. After that he left her with her child.
Arthur Dimmesdale is a young but very respected Puritan minister who has a great intellect and who is very aware of the Puritan rules. On the contrary, however, he kind of defends Hester Prynne in front of the whole village which makes him generous, brave and nice.

Drum Taps by Whitman

In the poet "Drum Taps", Whitman describes preparations for a war ("The young men falling in and arming", "Outdoors arming—indoors arming—the flash of the musket-barrels").
In the abstracts he describes the terrible feeling he had while he was serving probably serving as a nurse.
("To sit by the wounded and soothe them, or silently watch the dead.")
All these events take place at Manhattan, New York City. So you can assume that Whitman has served for the Union. In this poet, he emphasizes how sad and terrible he feels about this war.

Description and challenges of the poet by Whitman

In the 4th paragraph Whitman says: "The American poets are to enclose old and new for America is the race of races."
He challenges him by saying:" For such the expression of the American poet is to be transcendant and new."
"Of all nations the United States with veins full of poetical stuff most need poets and will doubtless have the greatest and use them the greatest."
"Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall." 
"Of all mankind the great poet is the equable man."
With all these statements Whitman challenges the American poet.

Whitman “Preface to ‘Leaves of Grass’”

In today's class we started reading the “Preface to ‘Leaves of Grass’” of Whitman.
After reading the first two paragraphs we noticed that Whitman used a very different style of writing than, for example, Emerson used.
He starts like this: "AMERICA does not repel the past".Then he lists a few things related to the American people (in his opinion) and ends the first paragraph by saying (the American people)..."and that he shall be fittest for his days.", which maybe means that he was a patriot.
In the second paragraph, he starts with: "The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth, have probably the fullest poetical nature."
He also names the greatest thing for the American people"the spirit of the citizen".That even confirms that he was really patriotic. But he names also issues that in his opinion is very bad, for example slavery, treatment of the Indian tribes and women's rights.

Democracy

In a democracy, the elected government must share its interests with its citizens.
My first responsibility as a citizen is to keep the democracy in my country and do not let it turn into a dictatur.
Thererfore, the probably most dangerous thing the democratic government has to be aware of is to keep order in the country, for example after a natural or economicv catastrophe. My responsibility in those situations is to trust the free elected government and not fight against it, for example by organizing big protests in order to cause chaos.
Another important responsbility as a citizen in a democracy is to follow the decisions of the government, to get interested and involved in politics and take the chance of going to free elections. It is also important to always have an own opinion and always to support it. This is the best aspect of democracy.

Responsibilities of the Scholar

In today's class we talked about which of the three influences to the scholar is the most, and which is the least important one. According to Emerson, we decided that nature is the most important one as he described it as "The first in time and the first in importance of the influences upon the mind is that of nature." As we went on reading the speech we found a very important statement: "Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary." By saying this he wantys to tell his audience, that it's not only important how "smart" someone is but how his character is like. (how he acts withy people etc.) He said this statement even though he belonged to one of the greatest thinkers of his time.
Emersson said in his speech that the American Scholar should never forget that he is a prior Mankind, but he also mentioned he should follow his own mind. I think by saying the American Scholar should never forget that he is a prior Mankind he wants him to broaden his understanding of the world from his own eyes (that is what he means by saying "Follow your own mind”)

End of Emerson's speech

In today's class we went on reading The American Scholar. In his last paragraph of his speech, Emerson refers to the reason of his speech- to make american culture more independent from European culture. With sentences like "He must be an university of knowledges", he tells the Scholar to be interested and find out more things so that his kowledge becomes broader.What I do not really understand is what he means by saying "The world is nothing, the man is all". Why should the world be less important than the man?

"An Indian's Looking Glass for the White Man"

William Apes, in his essay "An Indian's Looking-Glass for the White Man," argues that to profess Christianity and still making differences between races is not what God wanted to tell us. In his essay, Apes asks several questions such as why, if God loves white people so much, did he create fifteen colored people for every white one. He says that neither Jesus nor his disciples were white skinned. He also questions the white person's right to control Native Americans. Instead he turns the attention to the reservations in the different states of New England, which he calls with a few exeptions "the most mean, abject, miserable race of beings in the world--a complete place of prodigality and prostitution."

Test statement

In my test there were no real questions. My answers were ok but the explanation was too short.

My diary

Hello diary,

Today I want to tell you something about the new world I have seen.
As I joined a woman group today, I experienced a completely different kind of life. The first thing I noticed, was that they usually sleep until 11 in the morning. That is usually the time when we have our lunch. we get up with the sun for working on the fields. After they get up they disappear in a bathroom and stay there for like one hour. That's unbelievably. I mean, women living in our village get up at five and work the whole day on the fields or do work at their house lunch. They have even more work to do when their husbands are in wars. At the house where I stayed, the woman was preparing lunch at 12:30 and was finished 15 minutes later. That is because she just put something in a machine the call "microwave", which does nearly all the work. Even they have unbelievable plenty of food, the woman at the house did not eat very much. When I asked her why she is not eating anything, she just answered me that she does not want to get fat. People I live with would be so glad to eat something, because they do not have that much food.In the afternoon,we went to a big town and did "shopping". That means they go around the whole dayfrom one store to another to buy clothes.  And they buy lots of clothes. More than they need. I mean we have one, maybe two different skirtys. Some of the woman in this world are puttinmg on new clothes every oder every second day. They also wear men's pants.
Another thing II notyiced is the way they are dealing with men. Every girl goes to school such as boys. And women are saying theri opinion to their husbands. Thet even can get divorced without consequences and they can go to any elections men are allowed to go to. Some of the women even have the same jobs men have. But there is at least one common thing womem from our time have with the women from this time (or you can say world because it is so diffferent). Usually it is their job to look after childern. Of course, it is very different how the women take this responsibility seriously.
There are a lot of more differences, but I can not write them all.
This day was so exciting and it was really interesting for me to get to know a completely different way of life. 

group work about John Winthrop

In this blog we should write about the group work about John Winthrop and one's special part at the project.
First of all, we were looking for some sources to find some piece of information about John Winthrop's familiy life. We sorted out the most important facts and were quite suprised how many problems und bad luck this man had in his family life. Secondly, I suggested to write down some facts about his education and his later job. After that we found a really good summary about his spiritual life. We wrote down some notes about his life as a Puritan and his first years as a colonist in the New World. Over the whole time I was reading carefully about the sources we have chosen and made many suggestions for writing down the main facts about his life.

Group Study

In today's class we could firstly choose a person from a list and then write about him/her in a few notes. Then we should go together  in groups with each four people in order to specify the work about our person chosen. In my opinion it is a very good idea to do group working, because you can share each other's opinions about subjects. In the next few lessons we will probably work on our subjects in the groups. Everybody will aslo prepare something like informations,sources, pictures,graphics etc. I think group works only work if every member in the group gets involved in the work and shares his/her opinions.

The Prologue of Anne Bradstreet

In this poem, I firstly realized all the rhymes. But after reading Anne Bradstreet's biography, I understood how brave and intelligent she was. She tells about how few rights women had and how she feels about that. She is also unhappy about her religion. She tells aqbout the power that men have and her position to this in an ironic way: ("Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are"). But in some phrases she is totally serious and she was absolutely telling the truth. ("Men have precedency and still excel").

Joel Salatin

As I have read this article about Joel salatin, I have wondered: "How can someone create a so profitable method of farming that is also frienldy for the animals" But this is only one reason why this man inspires me. The other thing is that he tries to convince other farmers to improve lifes for theirs animals. Because of this I think he helps to make the world we are living better.

Prompt Essay Freedom, Sustainability and the Global Community

As I have read the question under the text we were given, the first thing that came to my mind was: 'I have asked me that question several times, but I have never foud an answer to it." But one thing I know is that the people cannot escape from this question, because this would drive us into a disaster. An important thing is, that everybody realises that problem and is willing to deal with it. Everbody should aslo think of what he or she can do to sort out the problem.

The meaning of literature

Literature has not been a new thing that was established like only 100 years ago; literaure has been existed for thousands of years. The Greeks, the Romains, the Mayas, great cultivated tribes and peoples have been living with literature and invented new poems, tales and novels. But literature is not only writing or creating books, it is also the ability to speak up and support one's own opinion. I think that is one of the main reasons why literature is taught in nearly every school. Furthermore, literature in one country can be very different from another. In my opinion, that makes it exciting, because it says a lot about its country. 

Winthrop gives us the premise for all else that he is going to argue. Note these accepted truths.


GOD ALMIGHTY in His most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankin.

Premise for all else that he is going to argue

He describes the premise for all else that he is going to argue in this following sentence:
Redacted and introduced by John Beardsley, Editor in Chief, the Winthrop Society Quarterly. Copyright 1997. The Introduction and Gov Winthrop's writing appear here with the kind permission of Mr. Beardsley. You are invited to visit the web site of the The Winthrop Society.

He ordains the creation in this way, because he wants the reader to notice that God wants to show just the opposites like rich AND poor etc.