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analysis of The Scarlet Letter
analysis of The Scarlet Letter
nathaniel hawthorne gender roles
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Who is Nathaniel Hawthorne? Nathaniel Hawthorne is the author of the novel The Scarlet Letter. He graduated from Bowdoin College, and then he moved back to Salem. After that Hawthorne spent the next twelve years writing, and had many of his books published. One of those books was The Scarlet Letter which was published in 1850. In fact The Scarlet Letter was one of the greatest books he wrote. Furthermore, Hawthorne was a great writer of the 1800’s, who was born in a puritan community with puritan beliefs.
The Puritans were a group of people who separated from the Church of England to try and purify or change the church. The Puritans believed that God was superior over everything, including the government. The Puritan Community would punish anyone who would not follow the law of God. For example, like in The Scarlet Letter, Hester was tempted to commit sin and committed adultery and had to wear the scarlet letter A as punishment.
The Scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel about sin, passion, love, and revenge. This novel is about a woman named Hester who lives in a puritan community. Hester is tempted to sin and has a child with a minister, Reverend Dimmsdale, which is revealed later in the story. Hester must wear a scarlet letter on her chest for every one to see to mark her shame because she has sinned. On the other hand Roger Chillingworth seeks revenge on Reverend Dimmsdale because, while Chillingworth was gone, Hester had a baby with Dimmsdale. I believe that Chillingworth being revengeful on Dimmsdale is a major conflict in this novel.
Hester Prynne, one of the characters in The Scarlet Letter, I believe is the most dynamic character in the novel. In the beginning of the novel Hester is portrayed as a young beau...
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...tter is meant to be a symbol of shame, but its symbolism changes throughout the story. The Scarlet Letter becomes a powerful symbol of Hester’s identity and eventually comes to stand for adultery or “Able”. Therefore the Scarlet Letter is a very important symbol in this novel.
To conclude, the Scarlet Letter is an extremely powerful novel that teaches you about the reality of life, and that there is not always a happy ending. From studying this novel I have learned that a lot of people sin, and that you shouldn’t be judged by that, but by the good things you do in life. I also learned that there are a lot of revengeful people in life that just want to harm others, and they don’t even notice that they are harming them. Over all reading, and watching, this novel has been a great experience that has taught me life lessons and helped me understand the reality of life.
James, Henry. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Ed. Harold Bloom: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004. Print. ]
The struggle between good and evil is the basis for any good work of literature. The Scarlet Letter is a unique story when it comes to the battle of light over darkness. There is not a set of good characters versus a set of bad; each individual has his own sins, whether hidden or exposed, that blights his nature. Despite this, there is one main struggle that dominates throughout the book. Pearl and Roger Chillingworth contend brutally over the soul of the minister Arthur Dimmesdale.
The fact that revenge destroys both the victim and the seeker is another theme presented in the Scarlet Letter. Dimmesdale is the victim of Chillingworth’s revenge upon Hester and whoever her lover happened to be. Dimmesdale, beside his self-inflicted harm was also not helped by the fact Chillingworth enjoyed watching him waste away. However, Chillingworth is also subject to this destiny as evidence by his change in the novel. Chillingworth was considered wise and aged in the beginning of the novel, although, later he is seen as being dusky and evil.
Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the most creative symbolists in 19th century literature. Throughout his novel The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne makes use of various effective symbols that are represented through characters and the scarlet letter itself. These symbols are used to represent the various aspects of rigid Puritan society.
The Scarlet letter is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The plot focuses on sin in the Puritan society. Hester Prynne, the protagonist, has an affair with Reverend Dimmesdale, which means they are adulterers and sinners. As a result, Pearl is born and Hester is forced to where the scarlet letter. Pearl is a unique character. She is Hester’s human form of her scarlet letter, which constantly reminds her of her sin, yet at the same time, Pearl is a blessing to have since she represents the passion that Hester once had.
Puritans believed in strict religious dedications, by trying to follow the holy commandment. “The discipline of the family, in those days, was of a far more rigid kind than now.”(Hawthorne 9). They wanted to be considered the holiest of all people because they try to reflect a world of perfection in the sight of God. While they where trying to portray a holy life; however, they where also living a sinful life because they have been judgmental, slandering, uncompassionate, resentment, and forbearing, which are all sinful acts of the bible.
The Scarlet Letter is a novel revolving around a woman who committed the sin of adultery in a small Puritan town in seventeenth-century Boston. Hester Prynne, the adulteress, refuses to reveal her lover’s name, and as a result is forced to wear a large, red "A" on her bosom. This is to tell everyone of her sin. Hester is also forced to live isolated with her daughter, Pearl, who is the result of her sin. Meanwhile, the small Puritan town remains very devoted to and very proud of their young minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. What they do not know is that it is Dimmesdale who is Hester’s Lover and Pearl’s father. The fact that Dimmesdale keeps his sin a secret is tearing him up, both physically and emotionally. To complicate matters even more, Hester’s old and slightly deformed husband is back. He had stayed in England for quite a while allowing Hester to settle into their new home.
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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic, The Scarlett Letter, has become one of the most discussed novels of all time. A great deal of` controversy streams from the obvious gender-related issues throughout the story. Considering the setting of seventeenth-century Boston, the plot takes place in a conservative Puritan society. Because of this, Hester Prynne, the protagonist, spends the seven years, over the course of which the book takes place, dealing with the repercussions of what is believed to be a “crime” against God and her community. The situation she is put in is one very few people could truly endure. Yet, she is able to beat all odds and surpass peoples’ expectations of an “ordinary Puritan women.” The complexity of the story goes into the depths of gender equality and the unconventional position this woman has in society. Hawthorne is able to depict conflicting gender roles in The Scarlett Letter by illustrating the expected persona of a Puritan woman and directly contrasting that norm with his very complicated and well-developed character, Hester Prynne.
In The Scarlet Letter, Hester is the main character. Hester is referred to as “Mistress Prynne” (Hawthorne 70). The Scarlet Letter also mentions she is holding her three month old baby, Pearl, in her arms who winked and turned her head by the sun’s rays (Hawthorne 71). She is described as having an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold thread “letter A” on the breast of her gown (Hawthorne 71). Hester was also a tall woman (Hawthorne 72). Her hair was dark and abundant her hair shined while the sunshine gleamed off her hair (Hawthorne 72). Hester had a marked brow and dark black eyes (Hawthorne 72). Hester Prynne is often described as a lady-like person (Hawthorne 72).
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, there are many moral and social themes develped throughout the novel. Each theme is very important to the overall effect of the novel. In essence, The Scarlet Letter is a story of sin, punishment and the importance of truth. One theme which plays a big role in The Scarlet Letter is that of sin and its effects. Throughout the novel there were many sins committed by various characters. The effects of these sins are different in each character and every character was punished in a unique way. Two characters were perfect examples of this theme in the novel. Hester Prynne and The Reverend Dimmesdale best demonstrated the theme of the effects of sin.
The Scarlet Letter is a well-known novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In this novel Hawthorne wrote in depth about the Puritans’ reception to sin, in particular, adultery. He also includes brilliant visuals of the repercussions that occur when the town of Salem hears of Hester’s adultery. There are many relationships within the book, from a lover to a beautiful yet illegitimate daughter. Symbolism runs throughout, even a simple rose bush outside of a jail holds so much meaning. Hawthorne reveals themes all through the novel one in particular, was sin. Although sin does not occur often in the Puritan lifestyle Hawthorne shows the importance and change this one deceit makes for the town of Salem.
The Scarlet Letter, a novel based in Boston with Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale as the main characters, focuses on sin and its repercussions. Adultery and Hypocrisy are two such sins that are the main focus of the plot. Some think that adultery is the sin that the book is concerned with, but if that were so it would pervade through the entire novel on a less superficial level that it does. Hypocrisy, on the other hand, has a constant and repetitious under light in the entire novel that leads to the conclusion that the novel is not teaching about adultery, but hypocrisy with an underlying idea of adultery.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a study of the effects of sin on the hearts and minds of the main characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. Sin strengthens Hester, humanizes Dimmesdale, and turns Chillingworth into a demon.
One of the main themes in The Scarlet Letter is that of the secret. The plot of the book is centered on Hester Prynne’s secret sin of adultery. Nathaniel Hawthorne draws striking parallelism between secrets held and the physical and mental states of those who hold them. The Scarlet Letter demonstrates that a secret or feeling kept within slowly engulfs and destroys the soul such as Dimmesdale’s sin of hypocrisy and Chillingworth’s sin of vengeance, while a secret made public, such as Prynne’s adultery, can allow a soul to recover and even strengthen.