...Estep 1 Chastidy Estep Mr. Horn Eng. 241 14 February 2013 It can be concluded that the consequences of sin is the theme of Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne explored this theme by four distinctive levels of sin. Although each level was equally displayed throughout the novel, the communal sin of man's inhumanity to man outranked all else. The primary characters are each guilty of one or more of the following levels of sin; the sin of vengeance, the sin of hypocrisy, and the sin of adultery. In the beginning of the novel, it is revealed that Hester Prynne is guilty of adultery. One of the consequences for her sin is a prison term. Secondly, she had a child, a baby who was conceived from lust rather than love. Hester named this child Pearl, meaning of great value. Thirdly, Hester was condemned to wear the scarlet letter, upon her bosom, for all to recognize her as one who has met with the black man in the forest. Fourth, she was made to stand in public ignominy as the townsmen mocked her.(Bercovitch, S, 1991) Although the magistrates tried to make Hester Prynne reveal her accomplice, she kept his name unknown. As one may have guessed, from the hints given throughout the novel, Arthur Dimmesdale was also guilty of adultery. However, he did not confess his sin until it was too late. Dimmesdale continued his ministry in the church, as a hypocrite, concealing his sin. Nevertheless, his guilty conscience drove him to a manic-depressive state of mind. Dimmesdale...
Words: 1290 - Pages: 6
...Explain the Hawthorne Studies. The “Hawthorne Effect” is when people change their behaviour when they notice that they are being monitored. This was first thought of by Elton Mayo (1880 – 1949), who is also the inventor of the human relations school which, says that any business or an organization which wants to maximize their productivity must ensure that the workers of that organization are fully satisfied. It also says that the management should allow the workers to be a part of the decision making process of the organization, as this will make the workers feel that they have some part to play in the organization. The Hawthorne Studies are known today as the human relations school. The Hawthorne Studies were a series of experiments which were conducted by Elton Mayo and his team over a five year period between 1927 and 1932 at the Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric company in Chicago. Mayo believed that working environment and working conditions like lighting, heating, rest periods, incentive schemes, hours of work and so on had a significant effect on the workers productivity. During the five year period many experiments were undertaken in an attempt to create the perfect working environment and condition. Basically there were two groups in one group no changes were made. The working conditions remained the same. In the other group the working conditions were altered. Both the groups were observed. In one scenario as the heating and the other conditions were changed...
Words: 728 - Pages: 3
...and motion studies, in which management would carefully break down tasks into simple chunks, then work out the best way for a worker to execute the chunks (all the way down to how long a step to take, how often to break, how much water to drink, etc.). The worker then executed their jobs exactly as they were told, like automatons. As part of the Scientific Management regime, companies routinely studied the effects of the physical environment on their workers. For example, they varied the lighting to find the optimum level of light for maximum productivity. They piped in music, varied the temperature, tried different compensation schemes, adjusted the number of working hours in a day, etc. The Hawthorne studies were carried out by the Western Electric company at their Hawthorne plant in the 1920's. Initially, the study focused on lighting. Two things emerged from the initial studies: (1) the experimenter effect, and (2) a social effect. The experimenter effect was that making changes was interpreted by workers as a sign that management cared, and more generally, it was just provided some mental stimulation that was good for morale and productivity. The social effect was that it seemed that by being separated from the rest and being given special treatment, the experimentees developed a certain bond and camaraderie that also increased...
Words: 253 - Pages: 2
...Nathaniel Hawthorne The 19th century had many great achievements happen within its 100-year time period. From the building of the Erie Canal, to the steel plow being invented. From the invention of the telegraph, to Thomas Edison creating the first light bulb. While all of these inventions have stood the test of time, one has lasted just as long; the inspiring tales a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. His name by birth was Nathaniel Hawthorne. He added the w to his name when he began to sign his stories. ("Nathaniel Hawthorne" American Writers II) One of Hawthorne’s ancestors was actually a judge in the Salem witch trials. The guilt and shame Hawthorne felt of his ancestors were included in some of his stories. (McGraw Hill, pg.67) Hawthorne’s father was a sea captain. He died of fever when Hawthorne was only four. Shortly after his father’s death, his mother was forced to move her three children into her parent’s home and then into her brother’s home in Maine. Hawthorne’s childhood was not particularly abnormal, as many famous authors have claimed to have. Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College and graduated after four years. After graduation, he returned to Salem. Contrary to his family’s expectations, Hawthorne did not begin to read law or enter business, rather he moved into his mother’s house to turn himself into a writer. Hawthorne wrote his mother, "I do not want to be a doctor and live by men’s...
Words: 801 - Pages: 4
...Introduction The Hawthorne effect is a term referring to the tendency of some people to work harder and perform better when they are participants in an experiment. Individuals may change their behavior due to the attention they are receiving from researchers rather than because of any manipulation of independent variables. This effect was first discovered and named by researchers at Harvard University who were studying the relationship between productivity and work environment. Researchers conducted these experiments at the Hawthorne Works plant of Western Electric. The study was originally commissioned to determine if increasing or decreasing the amount of light workers received increased or decreased worker productivity. SLIDE 1 The Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve or modify an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they know they are being studied, not in response to any particular experimental manipulation. The researchers found that productivity increased due to attention from the research team and not because of changes to the experimental variable. Hawthorne Works had commissioned a study to see if its workers would become more productive in higher or lower levels of light. The workers' productivity seemed to improve when changes were made and slumped when the study was concluded. It was suggested that the productivity gain occurred due to the impact of...
Words: 411 - Pages: 2
...Nathaniel Hawthorne's background influenced him to write the bold novel The Scarlet Letter. One important influence on the story is money. Hawthorne had never made much money as an author and the birth of his first daughter added to the financial burden ("Biographical Note" VII). He received a job at the Salem Custom House only to lose it three years later and be forced to write again to support his family (IX). Consequently, The Scarlet Letter was published a year later (IX). It was only intended to be a long short story, but the extra money a novel would bring in was needed ("Introduction" XVI). Hawthorne then wrote an introduction section titled "The Custom House" to extend the length of the book and The Scarlet Letter became a full novel (XVI). In addition to financial worries, another influence on the story is Hawthorne's rejection of his ancestors. His forefathers were strict Puritans, and John Hathorne, his great-great-grandfather, was a judge presiding during the Salem witch trials ("Biographical Note" VII). Hawthorne did not condone their acts and actually spent a great deal of his life renouncing the Puritans in general (VII). Similarly, The Scarlet Letter was a literal "soapbox" for Hawthorne to convey to the world that the majority of Puritans were strict and unfeeling. For example, before Hester emerges from the prison she is being scorned by a group of women who feel that she deserves a larger punishment than she actually receives. Instead of only being...
Words: 3220 - Pages: 13
...Jordon Wilkinson Mrs. Mitchell English III- 7th hour 11/13/14 Comparing Irving and Hawthorne Irving and Hawthorne both use a symbolic point to slowly detail the pathways in their short stories. In Irving's "The Devil and Tom Walker," Walker saunters through the "ill-chosen way" into the dangerous forest that leads him into his sinful journey. “Because of all his misery due to his wife, a forlorn-looking house,” and "community full of liars,” the short cut that he took signified a path that leads him away from all unhappiness and into the glorious light. Though it would soon be covered with the darkness of greed and evil, Walker risked the loss of his soul for the temporary phase of richness. Because of all the wealth he obtained as he was aging, his understanding of losing everything he went to the devil for advice, and he messed with his mind and soon regretted his bargain. After he did this, the story speaks advice of the pathway to the conclusion of losing his essence to greedy cravings. Like Irving, Hawthorne's story Young Goodman Brown exploits a lonely trail that is darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest. In which leads him away from the dream realm to authenticity. Though Goodman's dreary road differs from Walker's neglected route, Goodman also ambles through a path concealed by the thick boughs overhead, leading him to immorality. During his walk on the path, he encounters bumps on the road that curve his way into...
Words: 253 - Pages: 2
...Biography: Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. He entered Bowdoin College in 1821, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in 1824, and graduated in 1825. He published several short stories in various periodicals which he collected in 1837 as Twice-Told Tales. The next year, he became engaged to Sophia Peabody. He worked at a Custom House and joined Brook Farm, a transcendentalist community, before marrying Sophia in 1842. They moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, one of the first mass-produced books in America, it sold 2,500 volumes within ten days and earned Hawthorne $1,500 over 14 years, It became a bestseller in the united states . Hawthorne and his family moved to a small red farmhouse near Lenox, Massachusetts at the end of March 1850. Hawthorne became friends with Herman Melville beginning on August 5, 1850, when the authors met at a picnic hosted by a mutual friend. Melville had just read Hawthorne's short story collection Mosses from an Old Manse, and his unsigned review of the collection, titled "Hawthorne and His Mosses", was printed in The Literary World on August 17 and August 24. Interpretation: I think the veil is a kind of safe haven for the minister, it’s obvious that he is feeling sorrow for the young girl that was lost. “Elizabeth, I will," said he, "so far as my vow may suffer me. Know, then, this veil is a type...
Words: 459 - Pages: 2
...The Hawthorne Effect History and definition of Hawthorne Effect | The Hawthorne Effect was first discovered in the 1920s and 1930s, during a research program studying productivity among workers at the Western Electrical Company’s Hawthorne Works in Chicago (McCartney et. al, 2007). It was observed that no matter what circumstantial changes were made, the productivity of the workers increased. This observation was hypothesized as workers performance increased due to an increase of individual attention. In today’s research, the Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity where individuals alter their behavior to highlight improved aspects of their characteristics during observation. | Example of Hawthorne Effect | A good example of this effect can be seen when a researcher is carrying out a study on littering behavior of people. If the researcher lets people know that he is studying their littering habits, he might not get the true data intended. The participants under study will not litter around as they are used to when they know they are being observed. They will take the litter to the litter bins and throw away litter secretly. However, after the researcher has left and they are sure they are not being observed, they will revert to their usual littering habit. The Hawthorne effect holds that people change their habit temporarily when being observed. | Why is it important for researchers to know about this? | It is important for researchers to know about the Hawthorne Effect...
Words: 704 - Pages: 3
...The Hawthorne Studies Principles of Management 330 October 3, 2015 The Hawthorne Studies In 1924 to 1932 a series of experiments we're conducted on workers in a factory on how to increase work production. The experiment was conducted on the effects of the lighting in the factory; to see how the different setting of illumination will affect the production of the workers in the factory if any. The conclusion of the research showed that the production had increased not due to the reduction of the lighting, but because of the fact that the workers were being observed by the research team. This lead the research team to believe that productivity is more affective by psychological and social factors, this reaction is known as the “Hawthorne Effect”. Elton Mayo believed that management should stress on how the employees feel about the working environment, and how to motivate employees to communicate with employees. An employee or person social needs will out weight their economic needs. Therefore management should look for ways to make employees happy on the job so that they could be more productive. Some ways Mayo team looked at ways to promote job satisfaction. (Snell 36-37) Some of the significant findings of the Hawthorne Studies were: socio-psychological aspects of human behavior in organizations, the choosing of one’s coworkers, working as a group, why having a sympathetic supervisor were reasons for increases in worker productivity, why monetary...
Words: 966 - Pages: 4
...The Hawthorne Studies, researched by Elton Mayo, was conducted from 1924 to 1927. These experiments were conducted at Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Chicago and included the examination of productivity and work conditions among segregated employees. In this experiment, Mayo segregated six female employees from the rest of their co-workers at Western Electric and utilized such variables as rest breaks, work hours, temperature, and humidity with the thought that adjusting these variables from time to time would result in higher and/or lower productivity respectively. Additionally, Mayo gave the women a friendly “observer” supervisor rather than someone who was a disciplinarian. He made frequent changes in their work conditions, but always communicated these changes to the women in advance so that they were aware prior to the occurrence. Such changes included change of hours in the work week, work day and the number of rest breaks offered and the time of the lunch hour. During the experiment, the women were frequently asked for their feedback as changes occurred. The women became a team that gave of themselves wholeheartedly and spontaneously to cooperation in the experiment. The results of this experiment and the affect on organizational theory showed that employees are motivated far more by relational factors such as attention and camaraderie than by monetary rewards or environmental factors such as lighting, humidity, etc. “Evidence showed that interpersonal relationships...
Words: 458 - Pages: 2
...Between Hawthorne's earlier and his later productions there is no solution of literary continuity, but only increased growth and grasp. Rappaccini's Daughter, Young Goodman Brown, Peter Goldthwaite's Treasure, and The Artist of the Beautiful, on the one side, are the promise which is fulfilled in The Scarlet Letter and the House of The Seven Gables, on the other; though we should hardly have understood the promise had not the fulfillment explained it. The shorter pieces have a lyrical quality, but the longer romances express more than a mere combination of lyrics; they have a rich, multifarious life of their own. The material is so wrought as to become incidental to something loftier and greater, for which our previous analysis of the contents of the egg had not prepared us. The Scarlet Letter was the first, and the tendency of criticism is to pronounce it the most impressive, also, of these ampler productions. It has the charm of unconsciousness; the author did not realize while he worked, that this "most prolix among tales" was alive with the miraculous vitality of genius. It combines the strength and substance of an oak with the subtle organization of a rose, and is great, not of malice aforethought, but inevitably. It goes to the root of the matter, and reaches some unconventional conclusions, which, however, would scarce be apprehended by one reader in twenty. For the external or literal significance of the story, though in strict correspondence with the spirit, conceals...
Words: 9242 - Pages: 37
...Nature of Humanity According to Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne was born 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. He descended from a Puritan family who participated in the Salem Witch Trials. His father died when Nathaniel was four, and he did not lead a very exciting or remarkable life. A rich tradition of family and local history provided much of the material for Hawthorne’s works. Nathaniel Hawthorne is mostly preoccupied with human flaws, pervasive evil, and evil in humanity. In his stories, “The Birthmark” and “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Nathaniel Hawthorne attempts to convey the nature of humanity by describing a quest for human perfection, creating a sense of loneliness, and proving that flaws structure humans. “The Birthmark” has a very deep theme: man’s attempts to transform nature in order to make it more perfect than it already is. Aylmer is described in the beginning as a man who is a great scientist and a lover of nature but who also has a beautiful wife whom he loves dearly. Georgiana says, “To tell you the truth it has been so often called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so” (1). “Ah, upon another face perhaps it might,” replied her husband; “but never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection”(2). To Aylmer, his wife is perfect, but Georgiana’s...
Words: 1108 - Pages: 5
...The Hawthorne Studies; conducted in 1927 to 1932 by Elton Mayo, has been revered in the fields of psychology and management respectively. Both have derived various lessons from different aspects of the study. For example, the field of psychology looks at the affects that working in a form of an exclusive group has as presented in the Relay Assembly Test Room experiment. Management on the other hand has learned that the human psyche has varying effects on their productivity and are not merely drones driven by a single goal. (Hai, 2011) However, many criticise the relevance and contributions of the Hawthorne Studies to the studies of work and organizations. Criticisms sprouted from the results of the studies conducted which were; for the majority, inconclusive and hence being unreliable. The fact that those making these statements are ignoring is that; many management theories wouldn’t have been developed without these studies. Before the time of the Hawthorne Studies, management viewed their workers as simple drones in the company who do as they were told without question. To cut cost whilst maintaining production levels, companies would subject longer working hours and lower wages under considerably poor working conditions in order to maximise their profit. They did so because they believed the workers would continue production regardless similar to machines. When scientific management was introduced in the early twentieth century by Frederick Taylor, a huge shift in managerial...
Words: 1023 - Pages: 5
...Hawthorne’s Life through Symbolism Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American writer who is very well known for his use of symbolism. In many of Hawthorne’s short stories, he uses symbolism to express the conflicts he faced within his life. Some of these short stories include “Young Goodman Brown,” “Minister’s Black Veil,” “The Birthmark,” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” Within his work, Hawthorne tells great tales where each character faces a different issue in which they must make a decision such as one’s that Hawthorne had to make. Some decisions Hawthorne made in his very own life were his families’ beliefs of Puritanism and if he should follow their beliefs, conflicts with learning about his father and grandfather, marrying his wife, and how he remained isolated, a recluse, away from the world. In “Young Goodman Brown,” Hawthorne uses symbolism to tell the story of a young man who goes on a journey from his innocent world into an evil world. In the beginning of the story the reader is introduced to two characters, Young Goodman Brown and his wife, Faith. Hawthorne uses their names as the first piece of symbolism, Young Goodman Brown means a young man, who is good natured, and his last name “Brown” also means he is dull and just blends in the background. Morgan 2 Brown is married to Faith, whose name is also symbolic. Faith’s name is used as not only Goodman Brown’s wife, but it is also used as his faith. This is shown when he says, “My love and my Faith,” (Young Goodman Brown...
Words: 3061 - Pages: 13
