An Analysis Of Hawthorne's Short Stories

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of the Devil. Even with the
emotional plea from her husband, “Look up to heaven, and resist the wicked one,”
(1590) Faith cannot resist the Devil's temptation and has “uncertain sorrow,”
(1587) after submitting to him. The character of Faith which Hawthorne
portrays is one of uncertainty and one which has a lack of self control. Faith
is a good example of how Hawthorne uses a woman to symbolize a deeper
significance, in this case, it is to evoke the hypocrisy of the Puritan people,
that is, Puritans are really not as pure as we all think, they also contain evil
characteristics, in this case, exploited at night. We cannot justify Hawthorne's
usage of Faith as misogyny, in that woman were not considered equal in status
to men in the early 16th and later centuries. Also, with the history of
witchcraft during the puritan era, it can be seen appropriate that Hawthorne
uses a woman in this case.
In “Rapaccinni's Daughter”, Hawthorne develops the character of Beatrice
as the ...

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