Scarlet Sources

Tweethis. Aw yeah.

"The online world lends itself to the human tendencies of confession and concealment of sin, yet does so ineffectually, as one cannot truly gain the freedoms of confession by incriminating oneself online, nor can human flaw really be kept from the ever-reaching arms of the internet."

What is a thesis without some research, though? Here are some helpful sources that I've found throughout my online research:

• McEntyre, Marilyn Chandler. Reading like a Serpent: What the Scarlet a Is about. Eugene, Or.: Wipf and Stock, 2012. Web. This scholarly monograph outlines a possible Christian lens with which to read The Scarlet Letter, addressing specific doctrinal topics like faith, forgiveness, and... (drumroll please) confession! I contacted Dr. McEntyre (who has a website, blog, etc.) with questions about how she might connect the idea to the digital age. We'll see if she responds! I found a review of the book using Google blogs.
• Rasgussis, Michael. Family Discourse and Fiction in The Scarlet Letter. ELH 49.4. Pg 863-88. 1982. Though that citation belongs to the original publication in a journal, this scholarly addition to my novel, contained in a chapter called "The Critical Background", discusses how Hester, Arthur, and Roger refuse to verbalize the truth about the origin of the A, therefore denying Pearl of personal identity and family connections. Essentially, it describes an effect of concealment.
• Bercovitch, Sacvan. Hawthorne's A-Morality of Compromise. 1988. Another citation fail... this scholarly addition in my edition of the novel focuses on the implications of The Scarlet Letter, and Hester's decision to take it back up even after her return to Puritan society. It basically analyzes the efficacy of the A as a punishment, and can therfore tie to my argument that online confession/concealment serves as an inefectual form of relief.
• Kitts, James. Egocentric Bias or Information Management? Selective Disclosure and the Social Roots of Norm Misperception. Social Psychology Quarterly 66.3 (2003): 222-37. JSTOR. Web. 18 May 2012. This scholarly describes the social tendency to conceal behaviors that one considers abnormal. Perfect fit for my thesis, huh?
• Pringle, Michael. The Scarlet Lever: Hester's Civil Disobedience. ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 53.1 (2007): 31-55. Muse. Web. This scholarly article, which I accessed through Project Muse, discusses the various interpretations of the Scarlet A. Because the A serves as Hester's public display of transgression, his evaluation of the symbol can apply to how we interpret people's modern shows of sinfulness.
• Loring, George B. Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter So, I kinda think this was posted by someone that hates the security filters on public computers... I may have to come back and recite this when I can actually access the article. This one contrasts Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale with Hester Prynne in their ability to progres and improve after they commit mutual sin. As Hester embodies the confessed sinner, Arthur the secretive one, this comparative essay will help me flesh out the difference between the two concepts. Go Google Scholar!
• Ben-Ze'ev, Aaron. Privacy, Emotional Closeness, and Openness in Cyberspace. Computers in Human Behavior 19.4 (2003): 451-67. Web. This beautiful, perfect, wonderful scholarly article somehow manages to tie to almost every aspect of my thesis without even mentioning The Scarlet Letter. It talks about the human balance between emotional openness and privacy (as you may have gathered from the title) and how that balance seems to come to a sort of equilibrium online, with more openness and still a reasonable amount of privacy. Thanks again, Google Scholar.
• Gross, Ralph, and Roger Dingledine. "Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Social Networks." WPES '05 Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society : November 7, 2005, Alexandria, Virginia, USA (co-located with CCS 2005). New York: ACM, 2005. Somewhat similar to the previous source, this scholarly article (also found through Google Scholar) discusses privacy and openness, and the implications of both. I'd say that the first is better, though this one does include a study of 4,000 college students. These concepts of privacy and openness relate directly to the more specific ideas of confession and concealment.

There it is! A short summary of my scholastic sources. And though finishing an assignment like this makes me want to jump for joy, I cannot deny that this process of searching for scholarly validation is a good one. Picking the right search terms, choosing which articles will actually be helpful to me, gathering backup from psychological, social, and literary experts... All of this helps me to reexamine my idea through diferent lenses. Which, I guess, is another reason to jump for joy!