Amira Purnell November 6, 2017
Dr. Loonam English IV
Scarlet Letter FLE
In the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne comments on how keeping secrets has direct effect on the mind. When Hester Prynne accepts and embraces her sin, the act of adultery, she is able to grow and find happiness. When the reader is first introduced to Hester, she is standing on the scaffold and being scorned by the onlookers from the town. As the novel continues, Hester begins to flourish and slowly becomes reaccepted into society. Arthur Dimmesdale, a highly regarded reverend
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In Chapter 2, when Hester is standing on the scaffold, the townspeople are talking about what kind of punishment Hester deserved. “At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead. Madam Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she—the naughty baggage—little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why look you, she may cover with a brooch, or suchlike heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!” (49) As shown by this quote, a number of the townspeople believed that Hester either deserved to die or should receive a harsher punishment than just wearing the Scarlet Letter on her …show more content…
Hester tries to go back to the way her life was before, living in a house on the in the forest and takes up sewing jobs as well as raising her daughter without any help. As Hester begins to distract herself with sewing and comes to realize that Pearl is a blessing, the scarlet “A” takes on a different meaning. Once meaning “adulterer,” Hester, as well as many of the townspeople begin to see it as representing “able” (152). Once Hester realizes this, she reinvents the “A” on her chest and decorates it with gold to call more attention to it. Hester’s choice to accept her sin allows her to not only move on, but grow from it. Hester’s sin was exposed to everyone in the town, which kept it from being able diminish her from the inside. Rather than trying to escape from her past, Hester instead tries to complete tasks in an effort to receive
Hester Prynne is a character who gave up everything, even love, for her child. Hester Prynne sacrificed her peace, her beauty, her entire being for her child and this shows her determination and profound understanding of the world. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s piece, “The Scarlet Letter” shows the other side of the sinner’s story and not as a villain, but a victim.
Life is unpredictable, and through trial and error humanity learns how to respond to conflicts and learns how to benefit from mistakes. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a character who changes and gains knowledge from the trials he faces, but first he has to go through physical, spiritual, and emotional agony. In the midst of all the havoc, the young theologian is contaminated with evil but fortunately his character develops from fragile to powerful, and the transformation Dimmesdale undergoes contributes to the plot’s climax.
The reverend’s burden of secret sin ultimately led to his demise, while proving his pompous concern for life after death. Dimmesdale’s life was terminated prematurely due to the anchor of sin he bore day in and day out. The minister’s lover, Hester, “made the best possible recovery,” but was still condemned to “spend her life in retribution” (Jones). Notwithstanding Hester’s actions, Arthur’s “burden of carrying the secret sin literally killed him” (Jones). For seven long years, the ordinate saw the reprimands which Hester endured, such as public shame and forced isolation. Rather than join her in humiliation, Arthur chose to contain the depravity within his heart in fear of retribution. Had the minister confessed his immoralities, he would have paid earthly punishment, but would have endured for not bearing the corruptive evil on a daily basis. Dimmesdale understood his action’s outcomes because he would rather die with a holy legacy than go down in infamy for being an adulterer. When Arthur finally acknowledged his debauchery, his motives for doing so were still fainthearted. Reverend Dimmesdale’s redemption came from his own self-interest with little regards for Hester and Pearl. When the minister presented himself to the colony on the scaffold, he acknowledged his “death of triumphant ignominy before the people,” just before passing (Hawthorne 210). Regardless of Arthur’s depravity, he
Unlike the rest of the townsfolk, Pearl is able to make this connection and questions the minister 's intentions. As the reverend of the town, Dimmesdale is seen by the Puritan society as a holy and just man, yet the readers are able to see past the clergyman 's façade to his true, miserable self. Hawthorne creates the noteworthy persona of Arthur Dimmesdale through the characteristics of being dishonest, cowardly, and secretive.
He defies the system of education by leaving the institution and starting his own school. He did this because he believed following a set system with rules would hurt his integrity. This similar act plays out in the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the novel, main character Hester Prynne cares for her child despite what others think. She puts little importance to the townspeople's ridicule and judgement and continues to walk through the marketplace with her head held high. Hester keeps her integrity and continues to focus on her most important goal, which is to look after her daughter Pearl and give her all the love she deserves. Like Henry, Hester showed strength through her determination of keeping her strong moral principles and making her own decisions. Despite being judged and hated, Hester stayed sane and together because she had her integrity and knew the importance of defying against all external forces to be able to stick to what she believed
Hester Prynne’s sin was adultery. This sin was regarded very seriously by the Puritans, and was often punished by death. Hester’s punishment was to endure a public shaming on a scaffold for three hours and wear a scarlet letter "A" on her chest for the rest of her life in the town. Although Hawthorne does not pardon Hester’s sin, he considers it less serious than those of Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. Hester’s sin was a sin of passion. This sin was openly acknowledged as she wore the "A" on her chest. Hester did not commit the greatest sin of the novel. She did not deliberately mean to commit her sin or mean to hurt others.
At the beginning of the Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne is labeled as the “bad guy”. The townspeople demand the other adulterer’s name, but Hester denies this revelation. She does not reveal it because she knows that the information will crumble the foundation of the Puritan religion and the town itself. “‘But, Hester, the man lives who has wronged us both! Who is he?’ ‘Ask me not!’ replied Hester Prynne, looking firmly into his face. ‘That thou shalt never know!’(Hawthorne 52). Hester knows that finding out that the father of the child, the Minister that is leading the town, will diminish credibility for the church and for Dimmesdale, the Minister. During her punishment, Hester decides to move out near the woods and make a living as a seamstress. Hester is regarded as an outcast from Boston, but she still gives back to the society that shuns her. ‘“Do you see that woman with the embroidered badge?’ they would say to strangers. ‘It is our Hester, —the town's own Hester, —who is so kind to the poor, so helpful to the sick, so comfortable to the afflicted!’”(Hawthorne 111). Her acts of kindness, helping the sick and comforting the afflicted, toward the society that makes her an outcast shows the inner goodness of a person. Throu...
Three gossips present at Hester’s public shaming moan at Hester’s “merciful” punishment, one even going as far as declaring “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die.” (Hawthorne 36). As time passes, however, and Hester dutifully lives out her penance, the people start to see the piety of her everyday actions. After seven years, they go from crying for her death to exclaiming “None so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty…None so self-devoted as Hester, when pestilence stalked through the town.” (Hawthorne 110). They also declared her “a self-ordained Sister of Mercy…Such helpfulness was found in her,—so much power to do, and power to sympathize,—that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able.” (111). When the people of Hester’s town managed to stop gawking at Hester, they easily saw her true nature and changed their ideas to
Hester was judged by the whole community because of her actions and her scarlet letter “A”. It confirmed to everyone that she was an adulteress. A group of women said, “It would be greatly for the public behoof, if we women, being of mature age and church-members in good repute, should have the handling of such malefactresses as this Hester Prynne” (Hawthorne 59). They clearly gossip about Hester and demean her based on her immoral actions. Hester is criticized by her poor choice and is discriminated by the extremely moral townspeople.
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, contains many profound characters. The townspeople intrigue the reader because they gradually evolve throughout the book, as would any solitary character. In the beginning of the novel, they are generally rigid and judgmental towards Hester, because she has committed adultery. Throughout the novel, they slowly allow Hester and her daughter into their community, but still look at them with suspicion and doubt. Finally, in the end of The Scarlet Letter, the town forgives her of her sin, and she cautiously finds her place in society. Hawthorne uses the strict Puritan townspeople as a criterion by which all societies can be measured. The townspeople, as with any individual character, possess a certain depth that develops with knowledge.
In the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals the responsibilities that derive from sin through Hester Prynne, who clearly embodies an individual’s willingness to sacrifice something that is deemed valuable to their character. By purposefully relinquishing her power over factors such as her dignity, freedom, and love, Hester illuminates her inner strength and respect by believing that identity and self-evaluation are superior to societal judgement. Hester Prynne, the wife of Roger Chillingworth, has an affair with Arthur Dimmesdale after Chillingworth is assumed to be lost at sea. Their relationship results in a daughter, Pearl. Hester bears this child as an unmarried woman and, as a result, she is marked with the scarlet letter “A” for adultery.
Hester’s sin is publicly declared at the scaffold, and she is forced to forever wear a scarlet letter as a reminder of the wrongful act she committed. However,
"At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madame Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she,—the naughty baggage,—little
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, proves to be a sinner against man, against God and most importantly against himself because he has committed adultery with Hester Prynne, resulting in an illegitimate child, Pearl. His sinning against himself, for which he ultimately paid the
Hester Prynne committed a crime so severe that it changed her life into coils of torment and defeat. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester is publicly recognized as an adulteress and expelled from society. Alongside the theme of isolation, the scarlet letter, or symbol of sin, is meant to shame Hester but instead transforms her from a woman of ordinary living into a stronger person.