Frederick Douglass And Hester Prynne - 1701 Words

On the surface one would find it difficult to believe that Frederick Douglass and Hester Prynne could be anything alike. For starters, Frederick Douglass was a real person. A true historical figure in the Antebellum period of The United States. This was a man who was born a slave, escaped to his freedom and became one of the louder voices calling to abolish slavery. Then we have Hester Prynne, who is a fictional character from the mind of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Her time period was years before that of Douglass, as she lived Puritan New England. Looking at these two comparatively from the outside, it is hard to believe that the two would represent any of the same ideas. However, delving deeper into what they stood for, the hardships they endured, and how the came out better on the other end it is clear that the two of them are one in the same. Douglas and Prynne represent everything that America is supposed to be moving forward out of the Antebellum time period. The Antebellum period of the United States was the pre-civil war era where turmoil was building up across the country. Abolitionists were becoming a main part of the fabric of the political infrastructure. The country becoming more and more divided. There was a dream of what America was supposed to be. The state of the country at this time was far away from what the goal of The United States was supposed to be. Author’s at the time knew this. There was a change in through process amongst authors of the time. ThereShow MoreRelatedFrederick Douglass- An American Slave547 Words   |  2 Pagesreaders can be influenced by different ideas. When a person is exposed to a variety of different ideas and concepts, they often times change the way that they think or go about daily life. For example, books like The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass gave people insight to what it was like to live a life of oppression, thus making people feel sympathetic for him. Society also reflects literature in that we see a lot of patterns repeated from books to everyday life. We see the reflectionRead MoreHow Does Literature Shape American Culture?968 Words   |  4 Pagesthe Life of Fredric Douglass and various other works of literature are all pieces of American literature that have helped shape American society. The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in the sixteen hundreds. Hester Prynne is accused of committing adultery in her small puritan settlement but little does the town know that the father is in fact Reverend Dismmesdale. Having sent his wife ahead of him two years before hand, Hester stops her husband in