Tim Latina STAARS

Tim Latina

Subject-Hope

Theme-No matter what you have done and what you have been through there is always hope for you in the future.

Attitude-compassionate, caring, hopeful

Audience-Anyone

Rhetorical Strategy-Symbolism

Textual evidence-"But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in the 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"(50).

"The rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally over-shadowed it..."(50)

In the historical fiction novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne brings up the idea of hope. He says that no matter what you have done or what you have been through there is still hope for you. He puts this idea across by using symbolism. Hawthorne writes "...a wild rose-bush...to offer its fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came to his doom"(50). When something happens to you, you can always know that there is something good and that there is hope waiting for you when you finish your ordeal. Hawthorne also writes that "The rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally over-shadowed it..."(50). What he means by this is that hope will outlive many of the things we hold dear to us. Hope outlives all other ideals we have and, with it, we should always be optimistic and look on the brighter sides of life All of this relates to The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, in the idea of the hangings. If they confess to doing witchcraft then they won't be hanged and can look forward to being alive and hope that things will improve after it is all done. Also if they don't confess and do get hanged then also their pain and suffering is over. In conclusion hope is always there for you and will outlast every other idea you hold dear to you, with everything looking up for you in the future.

An idea that Hawthorne has is that holding in secrets will destroy you. This is true because during the novel Dimmesdale held in the fact that he had a relationship with Hester making him sickly throughout the book. He was unhealthy throughout until he confessed to the town publicly making him feel extremely better about himself, soon dying afterwards because he released all of his secrets making him clean. This is also true in The Crucible. John was holding in his secret of his relationship with Abigail until he accidentally mentioned it to his wife which soon after caused his life to spiral out of control with his wife being accused of witchcraft and later having her lie in court to protect him.

In a response to Lillie's question I do believe that it can be justified. She thought her husband was dead and would never see him again. She was in grief and couldn't justify her actions. She was just way too upset to think.