Annotated bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter and Other Readings. Norton Critical Edition ed. New York + London: W. W. Norton, 2005. Print.

This will be where most of my research information will come from the book and the other writings as well, The Scarlet Letter have the main evidence for my paper from the reader response view on motherhood. 

Person, Leland. The Dark Labyrinth of Mind: Hawthorne, Hester, and the Ironies of Racial Mothering. Norton Critical Edition ed. 656-69. Print.

This essay by Leland S. Person will help support my paper with quotes from the author that I feel are about my topic or are related to my topic. 

DeSalvo, Louise. Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Feminists: The Scarlet Letter. Norton Critical Edition ed. 500-12. Print.

Another essay that will provide me with little information mostly about Hawthorne but it does give me some insight to the Feminist view of Hester; this will give me some help with my paper.

Boudreau, Kristin. Hawthorne’s Model of Christian Charity. Norton Critical Edition ed. 338-68. Print. 

Another fine essay from the Scarlet Letter and other Writings, I have found some great evidence in this to give my paper more support from my reader response of motherhood. 

ruff draft and i do mean ruff

Neva Huber
Research Paper
4/30/11
Ruff Draft
In The Scarlet Letter , Hester Prynne is a strong willed and determined signal
mother of Pearl, her daughter from an affair with Dimsdale, Hester lives with the guilt of
her sin, reminded by her daughter everyday. Despite this Hester takes control of her live
by keeping her land and creating her own business she makes enough money to care for
Pearl and herself. In this paper I will be comparing Hester and my life as signal mothers
in completely different settings, one being seventeenth century and the other being
twentieth century cultures and societies and their believes.
Hester’s struggles are similar to the daily struggles that I my self go through in
my daily life as a signal mother, even though I did not have an affair, I am divorced and
raising my daughter on my own, also I work part time and go to school in order to provide
a great future financially for me and my daughter. Today’s society is much different from
the seventieth century, there are some similarities and many differences. Today it is still
seen as a sin to have an affair but it is not as strongly felt, some religions feel that
marriage should never end in divorce but that’s not always the case.
Hester Prynne was looked down upon by the society because of her sins, in the
seventh teeth century this was considered extremely sinful, but in the twentieth century
today this is not as looked upon so strongly, except that some religions in my case do not
believe in divorce and believe in the sanctum of marriage. Also signal moms get more
opportunities and are actually applauded of their jobs as signal mothers they work even
harder than others in some cases they may work two jobs and create lives for their
families, we all struggle with providing food, shelter, clothing and education for our
children. In Hester’s case she did not raise Pearl of their societies beliefs of the puritan
ways that everyone knew. She let Pearl choose her own ways, more of a radical and
unstructured way of life for Pearl.
I would also like to compare Hester’s inner strength, her willingness to keep going
on and this is what I am a strong woman, a successful woman, a mother and provider,
despite the every day struggles of living day to day. Not only has Hester survived sin and
raising her child she also gets true love in the end. I my self have suffered many losses in
my life, my brother, my mother and being a victim of domestic violence, has only made
me stronger, and pushes me to keep moving forward no matter how much I want to give
up. But most of all I can compare Hester’s honesty and compassion with my very own
honesty and compassion it is this exact description that characterizes both me and Hester
Prynne.

Annotated bibliography

Resources
1. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: London, 2005

Difficulty paper #2

Second difficulty paper

            I keep going over The Scarlet Letter in my mind and try to come up with parts of it that I can compare to my personal life as a signal mother, parts that seem familiar to me and that I can relate to. I know just the fact of Hester Prynne accomplishing her goal of struggling as a young women from day to day, she creates her own seamstress business that allows her to live on her own and raise Pearl even though she is the product of an affair.  I feel that I can relate to the part where Hester takes control of her life, she is determined to live on her own and to make money for her and Pearl, I myself am struggling with keeping up with school and working part time, I am determined to keep going for myself and for my daughter to make our lives better.  But what more can I explain and compare The Scarlet Letter to my life, I can summarize the story and give examples to show how this relates to my life. 

            Despite Hester’s guilty emotion and conscious of her sin she knows what she wants and this is true love she wants to live her life with man she loves not someone she barley knows or was not her choice to marry.  I like Hester want to live my life and I know that I want to do well for my child and to give her the best life possible. I have still more to explore and to compare of my life and Hester’s but that will hopefully fall into place soon. 

The Scarlet Letter

Difficulty Paper

     What I found difficult from reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, What I found most difficult was not having enough time personally to read it completely with out having to use spark notes. My last resort was to read spark notes to finish half of what I had actually read, I also found it difficult to follow the story, I loved when I started to read and I was intrigued by the exciting things that were about to happen to dear Pearl and her mother, Hester Prynne. I thought they might both be sentenced to death and be burned by the steak, but has I read on it was not what I had thought. This story was about love in every sense, about Hester’s affair and the child she had from this affair. I was expecting her to be not just a single mother of a fatherless child, but it was a child from her affair not her husband, who seemed to be stalking her, and plotting against her the whole time.

     The story was about love, a mothers love for her child and a child’s love for her mother, but the love of a man who saw Prynne for who she was and not for what she had done, it took both of them to admit to their sin of having an affair and having a child as well. I wanted the first story to not end, I read other short stories from other views and almost got lost but then soon realized that it was parts to a story but more like a play, with wild and strange language of the sixteenth century setting up the rise and fall of the plot and the whole story.
      I can relate to Hester Prynne in many ways, feeling like an outcast from her community, seemingly trying to fit in but marked for life. This analysis of her character is what I would like to use as my research paper for class, I originally wanted to do the content of the story but re examined my options and choose Prynne due to our similarities in being a single mom and feeling like an outcast in our own communities. I will be looking forward to researching on single moms in my research paper, and comparing her life to theirs, I would also like to examine what makes signal mothers more likely to suffer from post traumatic stress after having a child.

Gender Criticism Analysis/updated

Gender Criticism Analysis
My critical analysis
Girl
　 　 In my analysis of Girl by Jamaica Kincaid I will be using the Gender Criticism
Theory that we have discussed in class. I would like to start by describing the attitude of
the narrator’s point of view, which seems to be a voice of an authoritative such as a
mother figure of sort. The narrator’s point of view is not scolding the girl in this short
story but merely shaping her into how a well behaved young women should act. I feel this
sets the tone of the short story, the simple structures of a growing women is becoming the
women she is supposed to be in the authoritative figures eyes. All the how to do this and
that and what not to do and what she should be doing. The whole tone sets the setting for
me it is a year of conforming to be a good little women by learning to sew and cook like
women should be. However this is not the case in today’s society. Also in this story there
is a pattern, a repeating of the words “this is how you” preparing the girl for and or
training her as if she were involved in an arranged marriage. And through out the short
story there seems to be a very interesting style and it builds up the entire theme of the
narrator’s point of view. Some general examples of how a real lady should behave with
proper mannerism and grace would be when stick guidelines were given to girls to sit up
straight, ware skirts below the knew and not to chew gum because it wasn’t lady like.
It reminds me of private school, I never attended but was often treated like I was
by my grandmother, she would always tell me to pull my hair back so that it wouldn’t get
in my food on my plate. She picked out clothes for me that only she would ware and
made a big deal when I became a woman. I guess I would have to say that there are
positive and negative impacts due to some of the text. Like the narrators’ point of you
always nagging on the girl, could cause for the girl to rebel and not enough guidance
could cause her to become the girl she is not supposed to be. Overall I feel that the tone
sets the theme and the setting for both the written and the video, I watched it and it was
interesting but very different from the actual text it’s self. by Jamaica Kincaid

Gender Criticism Analysis

My critical analysis
Girl
　
　
In my analysis of Girl by Jamaica Kincaid I will be using the Gender Criticism
Theory that we have discussed in class. I would like to start by describing the attitude of
the narrator’s point of view, which seems to be a voice of an authoritative such as a
mother figure of sort. The narrator’s point of view is not scolding the girl in this short
story but merely shaping her into how a well behaved young women should act. I feel this
sets the tone of the short story, the simple structures of a growing women is becoming the
women she is supposed to be in the authoritative figures eyes. All the how to do this and
that and what not to do and what she should be doing. The whole tone sets the setting for
me it is a year of conforming to be a good little women by learning to sew and cook like
women should be. However this is not the case in today’s society. Also in this story there
is a pattern, a repeating of the words “this is how you” preparing the girl for and or
training her as if she were involved in an arranged marriage. And through out the short
story there seems to be a very interesting style and it builds up the entire theme of the
narrator’s point of view. Some general examples of how a real lady should behave with
proper mannerism and grace would be when stick guidelines were given to girls to sit up
straight, ware skirts below the knew and not to chew gum because it wasn’t lady like.
It reminds me of private school, I never attended but was often treated like I was
by my grandmother, she would always tell me to pull my hair back so that it wouldn’t get
in my food on my plate. She picked out clothes for me that only she would ware and
made a big deal when I became a woman. I guess I would have to say that there are
positive and negative impacts due to some of the text. Like the narrators’ point of you
always nagging on the girl, could cause for the girl to rebel and not enough guidance
could cause her to become the girl she is not supposed to be. Overall I feel that the tone
sets the theme and the setting for both the written and the video, I watched it and it was
interesting but very different from the actual text it’s self. by Jamaica Kincaid