Revenge in Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter Essays -- Scarlet Letter es

The Scarlet Letter:   Revenge    Revenge is the act of retaliating in order to get even with someone for the wrongs they have done. In the novel â€Å"The Scarlet Letter,† the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses Roger Chillingworth to reap revenge on Arthur Dimmesdale for his affair with his wife, Hester Prynne. Chillingworth becomes so devoted to revenge that is all his life revolves around. Chillingworth then devotes the rest of his life to taking revenge on Dimmesdale. As the novel progressed, Chillingworth fits the profile of ‘vengeance destroys the avenger’. When Roger Chillingworth is first introduced to the reader, we see a kind old man, who just has planted the seeds for revenge. Although he did speak of getting his revenge, when Hester first met her husband in her jail cell, she did not see any evil in him. Because Hester would not tell him who she had slept with, Chillingworth vowed that he would spend the rest of his life having his revenge and that he would eventually suck the soul out of the man, whom she had the affair with. â€Å"There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares† (Hawthorne, 101) As the novel develops, Roger Chillingworth has centered himself on Arthur Dimmesdale, but he cannot prove that he is the â€Å"one.† Chillingworth has become friends with Dimmesdale, because he has a â€Å"strange disease,† that n eeded to be cured; Chillingworth suspects something and begins to drill Dimmesdale. â€Å"†¦ The disorder is a strange one†¦hath all the operation of this disorder been fairly laid open to me and recounted to me† (Hawthorne, 156). As Chillingworth continues to drill Dimmesdale, he strikes a nerve. â€Å"You deal not, I take it, i... ...Now go thy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man† (Hawthorne, 192). Chillingworth’s plan for revenge is based on Dimmesdale not confessing to his crime. When Dimmesdale confessed to the crowd on Election Day, Chillingworth pleaded with him not to tell. â€Å"Old Roger Chillingworth knelt down beside him, with a blank, dull countenance, out of which life seemed to have departed. Thou hast escaped me†¦thou hast escaped me! He repeated more than once.† (Hawthorne, 268). Once Dimmesdale had confessed and died, Chillingworth had nothing to live for. â€Å"At old Roger Chillingworth’s decease (which took place within the year).† (Hawthorne, 272). Revenge destroys the avenger, fits the life of Roger Chillingworth. He devoted his entire life to revenge, and what happiness did he have to show for it? Had Chillingworth not been so jealous, he might have had a better life to live.

Aesthetics †the issue of the possible existence Essay

Burke follows in the empirical tradition of Locke. He believes that all human knowledge comes out of impressions or sense experiences. We then take these simple bits of knowledge and combine them to form more intricate ideas. Our imagination is limited to use of the knowledge we extract from our impressions and are, therefore, incapable of creating anything completely new. He says that our imagination either portrays pleasing images again in the order we experienced them or reorders and combines these images of our experiences. Burke offers that humans receive pleasure from resemblances. Accurate imitations stimulate our minds. Burke’s goal and main concern is the issue of the possible existence of a standard or logic of taste. Burke is searching for certain principles that affect our imaginations in such a common and certain way that they could be a basis for â€Å"the means of reasoning satisfactorily about them†1. Burke states that these principles do exist. He says that even though it seems as though there is such a variety of taste, there is a standard that lies beneath the superficial range of differences. All humans perceive â€Å"external objects† in the same way. We become familiar with these external items by way of our natural powers: the senses, imagination and judgment. The most natural understandings that we receive are quite standard, what appears light to one is light to any other and what is sweet to one is again sweet to another. Burke shows that humans have a common agreement on these issues of preference by giving examples of expressions taken from taste experiences such as â€Å"A sour temper, bitter expressions†¦ sweet disposition, a sweet person†1. Burke realizes that there are many people who act in ways that would seem contradictory to these assertions, such as the preference of the taste of tobacco over that of sugar. These divergences from the natural pleasures and pains are a result of custom. They do not uphold the argument for diversity of taste, but rather call for a differentiation between Natural and Acquired taste. A man grows to prefer the taste of tobacco to that of sugar by conditioning his palate from habit. It is a synthetic preference, however, and the man still understands that tobacco is not sweet and sugar is sweet. Also if a man finds sugar to be sour we do not say that his taste is different, instead we say that his taste is not functioning correctly. Burke writes that when talking about acquired taste one must consider the surrounding factors such as the specific habits and prejudices of a particular person. These customs and intolerances do not oppose the â€Å"agreement† of mankind, but rather mask it. This conformity among humanity does not exist only in terms of the palate; it is quite the same in matters of sight. Light is more agreeable than darkness and summer and its conditions are more pleasant than winter and its conditions. Burke states that no man truly, naturally believes a goose to be more beautiful than a swan. To Burke sight is less subject to custom than the palate, however, change is applied. This applied change brings him to his next point about the palate. He says that these changes in palate, which make unpleasant flavors more pleasurable, are a result of frequent use combined with an agreeable effect. This affects humans in the way of substances such as opium, tobacco, alcohol, tea, and coffee. Burke writes â€Å"There is in all men a sufficient remembrance of the original natural causes of pleasure, to enable them to bring all things offered to their senses to that standard and to regulate their feelings and opinions by it† 1. Natural pleasures are still preferred to unaccustomed substances that induce agreeable effects. Someone who has grown to prefer opium to sugar would still prefer the taste of sugar to a drug that they do not have a habit with. There is a standard of pleasure of the senses in all humans. Burke explains imagination as our greatest source of pleasure and of pain. Since imagination is based on the senses then it too must have universal agreement among all men. The mind is much more disposed to picking up on resemblances than to finding differences in what we observe. Our imaginations are incapable of creating anything absolutely new so we must expand our â€Å"stock† through experience, and in resemblances we are able to find new images. We unite and accumulate and move forward with our feelings with likenesses rather then difference which cannot be placed.

Definition of Alpha Decay

Alpha decay is the spontaneous radioactive decay where an alpha particle is produced. An alpha particle is essentially a helium nucleus or He2 ion. Although alpha decay presents a significant radiation risk if the radioactive source is inhaled or ingested, alpha particles are too large to penetrate very far through the skin or other solids and require minimal radiation shielding. A sheet of paper, for example, blocks alpha particles.An atom that undergoes alpha decay will reduce its atomic mass by 4 and become the element two atomic numbers less. The general reaction to alpha decay isZXA → Z-4YA-2 4He2where X is the parent atom, Y is the daughter atom, Z is the atomic mass of X, A is the atomic number of X. Examples: 238U92 decays by alpha decay into 234Th90.