The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Recommended: Critical analysis of the scarlet letter

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the guilt bestowed upon two passionate lovers committing adultery reveals the corrupt and over-radical beliefs of a strict Puritanical society. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale face life-changing consequences after submitting to their emotions and committing sin. The narrator’s forgiving tone presents the society as being very strict in living by their social and religious codes. The administrative, or authoritarian, imagery conjured up by various scenarios with the scaffold, magistrates, and the mayor in hid castle supports the tense mood as Hester and Dimmesdale try to mysteriously elude the laws of their community. Hawthorne employs allegory to the names of many characters in the novel to suggest their vulnerable personalities as they, in many cases, become shaped by the Puritanical views. Most importantly, the abundance of symbolism, such as the scarlet letter “A” itself, hammers home the effects of the Puritanical moral values on the characters in the novel.

Puritans originated as a main protestant group separating themselves from the English church in the 16th century. Their radical mores distinguished them as a very draconian yet almost utopian group as they aimed to live very uniformly by their core values. Today the term “puritan” may be used to describe someone who has very disciplinary perspectives on sexual morality. This stems from the historical Puritans’ lack of tolerance for sexual activity outside of the marital requirements. Living by such oppressive laws, the punishments for lawbreakers equaled the harshness, revealed in the novel with frequent authoritarian imagery. In Puritanical society, bestowing shame and guilt may be regarded as the best forms of penalty. In...

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...nding the letter “A” onto his chest to lift the hardship slightly off of Hester. Emotionally, he goes from wanting to conceal his sins to revealing to this whole community about his flaws as to lift the burden and confess his sins in a dying effort to, in a sense, apologize to God.

Guilt defines the relationships and personalities of the characters in The Scarlet Letter. The protagonists shape their lives around their immense feelings of guilt and shame or their aim to bestow blame upon others. The Puritan society in which Hester and Dimmesdale live tries to create ideal laws and moral values to control its inhabitants. However the punishments the magistrates employ in rejecting the pair from the community forces them to deny those very mores. The novel clearly demonstrates the flaws of such radical societies as they oppress the greatness of the human condition.

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