MORAL VALUES OF MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY IN THE PURITAN ERA: A STUDY ON NATHANIEL HAWTHORNES THE SCARLET LETTER

Didik Rinan Sumekto

Abstract


This study aimed at revealing and discussing the life of Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne as depicted in Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter, which adopted the moral values set in the past nineteenth century Massachusetts society. The research used the historical qualitative method by focusing on empirical facts found in the research site in accordance with the structural society existence in a particular period. Data collection and interpretation technique was applied systematically by explaining and describing the actions and events of the story with facts about the Puritan dogma. The findings showed that the moral values had described the life of Arthur and Hester, as the major character via (1) the satirical outline on the actual world of morality within Massachusetts society; (2) the degree of Puritan morality, hypocrisy, guilt and final painful expiation to Arthur and Hester, to which they had condemned, violated, and led to a consequence of punishment upon their moral hazard, since the law of God and the manmade law treachery were seductively done on behalf of love; and (3) the empirical understanding of the consequence and positive implication of life in struggling for honesty, honor, dignity, strength and endurance

Keywords


Puritanism, moral values, treachery

Full Text:

PDF

References


Anderson, G. & Arsenault, N. (1998). Fundamentals of Educational Research (2nd ed). London: The Falmer Press, Taylor & Francis Inc.

Ary, D., Jacobs, L. C. & Sorensen, C. K. (2010). Introduction to Research Education (8th ed.). California: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Bell, D. (1977). The Return of the Sacred? The Argument on the Future of Religion. British Journal of Sociology, (28), 419-449.

Baugh, C. A. (1967). Puritanism. Background of American Literary Thought. New York: Meredith Publishing Company.

Borg, W. R. (1963). Educational Research: An Introduction. London: Longman.

Bradley, S., Beatty, R. C., & Needleman, M. H. (1962). The American Tradition in Literature. Vol. I. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Bremer, F. J. (2009). Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Buchel, R. A. & Gray, R. J. (1994). The Frontier Best. Introduction to American Studies. Malcolm Bradbury and Howard Temperly. Ed. New York: Longman.

Coffey, J. & Lim, P. C. H. (2008). The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism. In Bremer, F. J, The Puritan Experiment in New England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 127-142.

Cohen, L., Manion, L. & Morrison, K. (2007). Research Methods in Education (6th ed.). New York: Routledge-Taylor & Francis Group.

Crawford, B., Kern, A. C. & Needleman, M. H. (1946). An Outline History of American Literature. New York: Barnes and Noble Books.

Foerster, N. (1962). Image of America: Our literature from Puritanism to the Space Age. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

Fraenkel, J. R. & Wallen, N. E. (2009). How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education (7th ed.). New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Gatta, J. (2004). Making Nature Sacred: Literature, Religion, and Environment in America from the Puritans to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.

Hawthorne, N. (1987). The Scarlet Letter and Selected Tales. New York: The Ohio State University Press.

Hawthorne, N. (1959). The Scarlet Letter. Boston: The New American Library, Inc.

Hockett, H. C. (1955). The Critical Method in Historical Research and Writing. London: Macmillan.

Lemay, J. A. L. (1988). An Early American Reader. Manila: United States Information Agency.

Miller, P. & Johnson, H. T. (1963). The Puritans (ed). Vol. I & II. New York: Harper & Row Publishers.

Porterfield, A. (1992). Female Piety in Puritan New England: The Emergence of Religious Humanism. New York: Oxford University Press.

Rubin, D. L, Jr. (1979). The American South: Portrait of a Culture. Washington, DC: Voice of America Forum Series.

Winthrop, J. (1630). A Model of Christian Charity. In A.

Heimart & A. Delbanco, The Puritans in America: A Narrative Anthology. (pp.82-92). New York: Evergreen Review, Inc.

Zafirovski, M. (2007). The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Authoritarianism: Puritanism, democracy, and society. New York: Springer Science Business Media, LLC.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.24167/celt.v14i2.320

Bookmark and Share


Copyright (c)



| pISSN (print): 1412-3320 | eISSN (online): 2502-4914 | web analytics View My Stats