1. Human Nature: Beautiful and Beastly Kelci Beatty, Slammin Salmon (Nick Miller), Scott Keffer, Terae Moxey

2. Human Nature OverviewHuman Nature Overview  Human nature has a great capacity for evil  May be dark deep down, but even deeper is eternal beauty  Always beauty within the dark  Scarlett Letter shows that internal beauty can over come sin and darkness

3. Important Character: HesterImportant Character: Hester  Prime example of eternal beauty  Scarlett letter masks womanhood and youth  Sin masks beauty  Externally tired and aged  Internally strong, prideful, and beautiful

4. Themes Transcendentalism  People are naturally good  Individuality  People will do what they believe  Staying strong through hardships Sanctity of the Heart  Beneath sin is still strong  Heart is the only thing your own  Individual (who you are)

5. Thesis In human nature there is always beauty beneath the surface of people, even though they appear to be dark; Hester’s natural beauty is masked by her sins and she appears to be dark and aged, unlike her natural self that is beautiful and young.

6. Quote 1Quote 1 “He laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman…in the threshold of the prison door, she repelled him, by an action marked with dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as of by her own free will” (Chapter 2, page 62)

7. Meaning of Quote 1Meaning of Quote 1  Hester’s repulsion of the guard shows her inner strength  Inner strength=beautiful—not fully engulfed in darkness

8. Quote 2Quote 2 “Hester Prynne with a mind of nature, courage, and activity, and for so long a period merely estranged, but outlawed for society…Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods.” (Chapter 18, page 239)

9. Meaning of Quote 2Meaning of Quote 2  Internal beauty and strength helped Hester through hard times  Strength not always visible but it’s always there

10. Quote 3Quote 3 “The burden of shame and anguish departed further from her spirit. Oh, exquisite relief!...Her sex, her youth, and the whole richness of her beauty came back from what meant men call the irrevocable past.” (Chapter 18, page 243)

11. Meaning of Quote 3Meaning of Quote 3  Once the SL is removed beauty returns  Sin and darkness will mask inter beauty  One must find a way to show beauty in the darkness

12. Quote 4Quote 4 “But, on the one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the thresh hold, was a wild rose-bush… which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.” (Chapter 1, page 56)

13. Meaning of Quote 4Meaning of Quote 4  Rose-bush symbolizes beauty  Even during punishment for sin beauty can still be found

14. Quote 5Quote 5 “Mother says little Pearl, the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom.” (Chapter 16, page 220)

15. Meaning of Quote 5Meaning of Quote 5  SL masks Hester’s beauty and happiness  Noticeable that the SL is the reason behind her darkness