Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is one of the most respected and admired novels of all time. Often criticized for lacking substance and using more elaborate camera work, freely adapted films usually do not follow the original plot line. Following this cliché, Roland Joffe’s version of The Scarlet Letter received an overwhelmingly negative reception. Unrealistic plots and actions are added to the films for added drama; for example, Hester is about to be killed up on the scaffold, when Algonquin members arrive and rescue her. After close analysis, it becomes evident of the amount of work that is put into each, but one must ask, why has the director adapted their own style of depicting the story? How has the story of Hester Prynne been modified? Regarding works, major differences and similarities between the characterization, visual imagery, symbolism, narration and plot, shows how free adaptation is the correct term used. The characters of The Scarlet Letter showed the ruthless, orthodox society of Puritan society. Hester was a feministic, self-reliant conformist, living on her own. In the novel, she showed she wasn’t able to abandon her society completely, leading her to move on the outskirts of town. In essence, she could keep her distance but maintain her connection to the community. She and Mistress Hibbins, who she admired in the film and despised in the book, are the only characters in both the book and movie who behave according to their own personal beliefs. Hibbins’ minor function in the book evolved into an imperative role in the film. Her relationship with Governor Bellingham wasn’t well portrayed in the film, when this connection prevented her prosecution in the book. Dimmesdale’s significantly strong... ... middle of paper ... ..., Dimmesdale escapes his inevitable death when his Algonquin best friend, Johnny Sassamon, arrives with Algonquin members for his aide. Hester, Pearl and Dimmesdale then move to the Carolinas to start a new life, leaving no recollections or legends for the town to remember. At times, the film seems to reenact a modern love story to appease a modern audience. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel showed his readers love and sin can be one of the same. Each author made what they thought would suit their own personal or public preference. Joffe’s purpose to take the chosen route was to give the character an extended theme basis from their original plot line. Neither story is “better”; one may be more entertaining while another being more informative. The film may have edited out one of the drastic details that made the novel’s success, explaining the films failure.
The novel “The Scarlet Letter” was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850 and is probably the book for which he is most famous. He was a prolific writer and wrote many short stories, a few collections, and several novels during his writing career. Nathaniel Hawthorne was injured as a child and became an avid reader and decided that he wanted to be a writer. Though he was a lackluster college student, after graduation he returned to his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts and began his writing career in earnest. Not only did Nathaniel Hawthorne have one of his ancestors who had been one of the three judges involved in the Salem witch trials (of which he was not too proud, but it probably helped his career because it was depicted in his writings), but also he had many influential friends to include President Franklin Pierce, Henry David Thoreau (Author), and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Poet), Herman Melville (Author) and he had actually rented the “Old Manse” mentioned in “The Scarlet Letter” from Ralph Waldo Emerson (Essayist). The “Scarlet Letter” is a work of non-fiction, but the preface is loosely based on Hawthorne’s actual life due to the fact that he actually did work at the Customs House in Salem and did lose his job there, which gave
Hester Prynne was the main character in the Scarlet Letter. Hester sin was committing adultery with minister Arthur Dimmsdale. Birthing a child named Pearl of pure sin. By committing her sin they punished her. “‘If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer!" (98 ) The community made her stand on the scaffold for public humiliation. Wearing the letter “A” on her garments meaning Adultery as another punishment. The community shunned Hester and Pearl looking at them as satans work. Hester believes that she should remain in Boston since that were her crime of adultery was committed making it as a reminder to herself what shes have done. Also staying to protect Dimmesdale from Chillingworth.
The narrator notes her change in morals and beliefs: “She had wandered… much amiss” (180). This passage describes Hester’s state of mind and morals after seven years with the scarlet letter. Compared to Dimmesdale, Hester is much wilder, yet also much better adjusted to the weight of her guilt. She has accepted what happened and uses that acknowledgment to shape her views. She has become stronger, more untamed, and more removed from society. Not only does society reject her, but her crime forces her to question morals and dive into her wilder nature. Religion and law no longer work as simple guidelines for her life. Her act is considered a sin, but out of it she got freedom, love, and Pearl. After being cast out, she now looks at society and its rules—the things most people conform to—from a more negative, outsider perspective. The letter gives her a chance to be independent and find what she believes in as opposed to what she's been told to believe in. She rejects society through both these rebellious views, and also through her actions upon coming back to the community. She helps women in the community by offering support and counselling. In such a male dominated society, this is an important step both towards feminism and away from the
Most everyone has two sides to their character, one that shows in public and one that stays confined to the safety of a more private setting. However, there are times when the private side overshadows the public persona and escapes. Then the person is either left standing there to clean up their damaged reputation or liberated with a sense of relief to finally show their true colors to society. Thus creates the predicament of the characters in The Scarlet Letter, written in 1850 by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Instead of starting the audience at the beginning of the ordeal, Hawthorne sits the reader right into the aftermath of Hester Prynne’s sin. The unforgiving nature of Puritan culture condemns Hester for having passion for any other besides her husband, even though they do not know if he is even alive at this point. Her private self, the side that longed for another man, overwhelmed her public Puritan image and escaped, leading her down the path of temptation. This Puritan atmosphere collides with many dark romantic elements, such as the guilt and sin of someone romanticized to the reader, and the evocation of sympathy to the “bad” character, the one wrong in the context of the book, but most everyone secretly roots for. Hawthorne mixes the Puritan culture with romantic elements to evince the struggle of the private self to create a false public image and conform to the masses.
The heavy and somewhat unjustified law of puritan society is a heavy weight that is too nearly too much for any person to bare. Hester Prynne is one person to feel the full weight of the law, and not only is she damaged internally, but she also experiences a noticeable physical change, and Nathaniel Hawthorne does well to depict the overbearing weight of Puritan law through the dimming of Hester’s radiant beauty. The scarlet letter is a symbol of Hester’s sin, and is also a constant reminder, and it is also the very thing that defines her as a person in society. The effects of the letter are apparent from when Hester first stands on the scaffold, to when she gradually loses her gorgeous appearance over time, to when she removes the letter and her radiant beauty returns.
In the book, Chillingworth is a physician who had been captured by Native Americans sometime ago and subsequently released by them into Boston, Massachusetts, who was strictly a Puritan settlement at the time. In the years of his imprisonment by the Indians, he was taught many native herbs and plants of the New World, and their uses on the human body. Through this, he entered Boston as a physician, known to have "gathered herbs, and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots, and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees, like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes." ( The Scarlet Letter , p. 120). Chillingworth had the knowledge of a particular drug, Atropine, which caused a sickness that closely resembled the condition of Dimmesdale. Chillingworth's motive for retribution to Dimmesdale for his adultery was very clear throughout the book, "There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine." (p. 80). Chillingworth's vengeful nature consumed his life and his only goal in life became the torment of Hester's adulterous husband, Dimmesdale. He was already showing signs of sickness, assumed by the reader to be attributed to his guilty conscience, and these were only amplified by the poisoning Chillingworth had inflicted upon him.
Throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester’s experiences in and out of the Puritan society and the weight of the scarlet letter change her in many ways, including her level of confidence, her appearance and her outlook on the Puritan people, and the way she feels about the letter “A”. Due to the sin committed by Hester she became the outcast of the Puritan community. She was forced to begin a new life on her own with no support from anyone. The sudden vicissitudes in her life cause a great transformation in Hester.
“Burn the witch!” has been a condemning cry for centuries, but those flames are not always real. Words, looks, and guilt can burn a sinner far more effectively than the pyre ever could, as evidenced by the torments inflicted on the sinners in The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Each of the characters was burned in a different way, just as they represent different types of sin. Hester Prynne, the adulteress, represents open, acknowledged, and public shame. Through her, we recognize that acknowledging sin eventually leads to forgiveness and healing, in contrast with Reverend Dimmesdale, who represents the festering wound of concealed sin. And the depraved man who seems to be sent to torment them both, Roger Chillingworth, represents revenge, and punishment for sin. Hester Prynne, who wears the Scarlet Letter, has her ignominy before the whole world. Her scarlet A reminds both Hester and everyone else that she is an adulteress. Much of The Scarlet Letter talks about her treatment at the hands of the townspeople, because her transgressions are out in the open, and they can punish her. On the other end of the spectrum is the Reverend Dimmesdale, who fairly goes mad from guilt. Every person considers him a godly, amazing man, while he has actually sinned as much as Hester. His concealed sin eats away at him, and he constantly wishes that he would be brave enough to confess. Some of Dimmesdale’s torments are the cause of Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s former husband. Through Chillingworth, Hawthorne reveals the evilness of revenge. He also represents the punishment for Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin, and is a physical manifestation of their torment. At the same time, Chillingworth is both revenge and punishment. And in addit...
old home in England, her mother, her father, and most of all, her own youthful
Letter while discovering that a hidden lie left to fester causes more grief and pain than he
Pearl is an example of the innocent result of sin. All the kids make fun of Pearl and they disclude her from everything. She never did anything wrong, but everyone treats her like she committed the sin also. Pearl acts out against the children that make fun of her and acts like a crazy child. She cannot control the sins that her parents committed.
Secretly meeting in the forest, Hester and Dimmesdale declare their love for each other. This behavior strictly defies the Puritan values to which she outwardly conforms. They secretly plan to reside in Europe to escape their current
Hester realizes what is going on between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth and gains permission from her husband to reveal his true identity to the minister. Dimmesdale is devastated by the news and agrees to flee Boston with Hester and Pearl. He will do anything to escape the hold that Chillingworth has on him. In the end, however, Dimmesdale realizes that he can only be rid of his tormentor by publicly acknowledging his guilt. At the end of the novel, on Election Day, Dimmesdale climbs the scaffold with Hester and Pearl again. This third scaffold scene is in the light of day and before a crowd. With his family at his side, Dimmesdale finally confesses his sin and shows the scarlet "A" on his chest. He then dies peacefully.
Throughout his literary endeavors, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes symbolism to present a certain theme that pertains to human nature and life. In his works, The Scarlet Letter and "The Minister's Black Veil", Hawthorne uses symbolism to present a common theme pertaining to religion; that though manifested sin will ostracize a person from society, un-confessed sin will destroy the soul.
The author of The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, expressed ideas of love, passion, shame, and punishment throughout his 1800s based novel. Due to the fact that this novel was based in a Puritan time period, it brought many mental and sometimes physical difficulties for the main character, Hester Prynne. The Puritans solely believed in God and all of his rules. With that said, the author decided to illustrate the drama of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s adultery in order to describe the change in Hester’s attitude. Because of the many events, adversities and struggles, Hester had a complete change in attitude from shame and embarrassment to love, proudness and satisfaction.