How Does Nathaniel Hawthorne Use Private And Socialize In The Scarlet Letter

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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is about a woman (Hester Prynne) who commits a sinful act and must go through a hard time for several years while discovering her true self and meeting past people in her life who had affected her. The public and private lives of people seems to be very different from one another. Being in public and socializing within it would lead to a high influence of not telling the truth of something to someone or a group, and the secret is not out and honesty wasn’t applied. On the other hand, being in private and socializing in that would really influence you to tell the truth, but at the same time not too. Both of these options of being public or private deal with a lot of stress and over thinking not just in …show more content…

The main character of Hawthorne’s novel is Hester Prynne, a Puritan woman who committed adultery and was publically punished for it. At the time, she faced a great amount of humiliation and hatred from the Boston townspeople for what she had done. Her punishment was to wear a scarlet letter attached to her breast for the rest of her life so then people will know she committed adultery. Because of her scarlet letter, the townspeople thought she was a sinful person and that everything she did was almost a crime. Despite through all of these tough times, no one knew who committed adultery along with Hester. This is because she never told anyone and kept it within herself, same with not telling anyone who her real husband was (Roger Chillingworth). Hester did this so she can protect the people she cares about most in her life and to keep their identity secret. A quote that shows the intense secrets Hester must keep in order for everything to be normal is "Wherefore dost thou desire it?" inquired Hester, shrinking, she hardly knew why, from this secret bond. "Why not announce thyself openly, and cast me off at once?" "It may be," he replied, "because I will not encounter the

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