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PURITAN PROJECTIONS IN NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE'S "THE SCARLET LETTER" AND STEPHEN KING'S "CARRIE"

Vol.7, Issue 1, 2021, pp. 69-86 Full text

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.21.1.5
Web of Science: 000658797400006

Author:
Maria Anastasova https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2240-2188

Affiliation:
Department of Germanic and Romance Languages, South-West University Neofit Rilski, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria

Abstract
It is considered that the Puritans that populated New England in the 17th century left a distinctive mark on the American culture. The article explores some projections of Puritan legacy in two American novels of different periods - Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" (1850) and Stephen King's "Carrie" (1974). After establishing a connection between the Puritan writings and gothic literature, the two novels are analyzed in terms of some Puritan projections, among which are the problem of guilt and the acceptance of an individual in the society. Some references regarding the idea of the witch and the interpretations it bears, especially in terms of the female identity, are also identified. Despite the different approach of the authors in terms of building their characters, those references are mostly used in a negative way, as an instrument of criticism and exposing inconvenient truths.

Keywords: Puritans, guilt, witch, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Stephen King, Carrie

Article history:
Submitted: 26 April 2021;
Reviewed: 25 May 2021;
Revised: 28 May 2021;
Accepted: 30 May 2021;
Published: 1 June 2021

Citation (APA):
Anastasova, M. (2021). Puritan Projections in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" and Stephen King's "Carrie". English Studies at NBU, 7(1), 87-96. https://doi.org/10.33919/esnbu.21.1.5

Copyright © 2021 Maria Anastasova

This open access article is published and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. If you want to use the work commercially, you must first get the authors' permission.

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Review

1. Reviewer's name: Undisclosed
Review Content: Undisclosed
Review Verified on Publons

2. Reviewer's name: Tadd Graham Fernée, PhD, New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria
Review Content: Undisclosed
Review Verified on Publons

Handling Editor: Stan Bogdanov
Verified Editor Record on Publons


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