Throughout history humans have been known for their ability to change, to adapt, and to persevere. Our understanding of what is morally correct allows us to recreate social norms when there are injustices. However, amid struggles are flaws and the scars they leave behind. Humans often choose to glaze over these disfigurements, akin how vines grow over withered houses. Similar to reality, the characters in “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne follow suit. Hester Prynne has committed adultery, a sin in the Puritan community, and is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” as punishment. After years of social outcast, Hester becomes wiser and begins to reject the values of her society while unknowingly encouraging her daughter, Pearl, to do the same. In “The Scarlet Letter,” vegetation is used to convey that pressure to belong does not induce conformity. In “The Scarlet Letter,” …show more content…
As shown in this quote, the Governor attempts to grow beautiful flowers and plants to look at, but the climate is unsuitable. Rather, his garden grows vegetables and sturdy plants. The mayor sees this garden as a shame: “...garden-walk, carpeted with closely shaven grass, and bordered with some rude and immature attempt at shrubbery. But the proprietor appeared already to have relinquished, as hopeless, the effort to perpetuate on this side of the Atlantic, in a hard soil and amid the close struggle for subsistence, the native English taste for ornamental gardening” (p97). Since the garden is not beautiful, it is written off as a disgrace and failure. The garden represents how Hester is written off as useless because she is not represent the face of Puritism the community wants to see. The Puritans refuse to see past their drastic good and bad perspectives. This refusal leads Hester to find use in herself and break the mold the Puritans have
by the Puritans result in a fit of outrage by Pearl. One reason that the
Imagine your whole town knowing the sin you committed. The article, The Scarlet Sin: Analyzing Secrets in The Scarlet Letter by Brian Stroner, discusses how two individuals encounter their mutual sin. Hester Prynne had to confront her whole town, who knows her sin. While on the other hand, Arthur Dimmesdale secretly coped with it. This article shows us how Hester's endurement of her sin, Dimmesdale’s coping of his sin, and the meaning of Pearl are all combined to give the novel worth.
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, everyone had some form of a secret they’d rather not share, but sometimes not telling can do more harm than good. At the end of the film, Hawthorne left us a quote saying, “Be true, be true, be true.” Hawthorne is trying to say keeping secrets isn't always the best because it only leads to someone getting hurt.
The Scarlet Letter is full of many psychological and moral aspects, and most of them relate very well to things that are going on right now in the world. They all go hand in hand meaning that the aspects that were explained in The Scarlet Letter, can also be explained in the same way as they can be explained now. Although times were very different in the times where The Scarlet Letter took place, they are all relevant for what people have to say about certain things in today's world. The moral aspects of the Scarlet Letter are almost the same as moral aspects of today.
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.
In time, the Puritan community comes to see the letter as meaning "Able" or "Angel" and not just a symbol of guilt. Hester’s sensitivity with the victims of society turns her symbolic meaning from a person whose life was originally sinful and sombre, to a strong and understanding woman with consideration for the humanity of others. In Hester’...
One of the most prominent debates throughout history is the question of individual versus group. Is it better to protect individual rights or sustain peace and safety in society? Is it better to be oneself, at all costs, or conform to the strict guidelines and rules set before each person by society? Conformity is fundamentally a failure to be one’s self and true to one’s nature. Non-conformists are those who rebel against the masses through their views and behaviour. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne constantly internally struggles with this debate on conformity. Often it seems she is willing to obey the masses, wear the letter, and settle for a life plagued with shame and guilt. Other times it seems Hester rejects society's rules as arbitrary
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter has a very wide cast of characters, but settles upon three distinct main ones. These three characters are all very different, but still suffer from the same internal conflict regarding their relationships with one another. One theme can be associated with each individual character, but a single trait is common among all three. Love, fear, and revenge are all primary themes present in The Scarlet Letter, but no other emotion is as prevalent to the characters’ developments than their guilt. These themes give us a sense of how different, but also how similar, these characters are.
Anything can be destructive and evil if one gives it enough power. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter there are many arguments stemming from government and its ability to be corrupted easily. Although Bensick asserts that Hawthorne shows the corruptness of the government and those a part of it with the use of characterization, irony, and symbols. While Korobkin states that he used them to show that the magistrates were just and made the decisions that were better for not only Hester but also the community. One can discern that the characterization, irony, and symbols were to show that the magistrates were the reason the United States judicial system operates the way it does.
Despite Hester never fitting the description of what a Puritan actually stands for, she emerges and transforms into a respected young woman of society during her revolution. Even though Hester’s humanity degrades itself based on her imprudent actions that resisted Puritan society, the scarlet “A” transforms her rebellion. Hester creates her own symbol for herself rather than one that masks her all along. In writing the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne highlights the importance of being a nonconformist. Evidently, through the character of Hester Prynne, self-awareness is key in order to achieve happiness. To repress defining characteristics of a human being is to ultimately destroy their individuality.
Hypocrisy has been everywhere in The Scarlet Letter. People of Hester, and the community that they lived in, were immersed in hypocrisy. Hawthorne was not restrained in his interpretation of the horrible sin of hypocrisy; he wanted be certain to see the sin at job , in the same moment, equivalents can be pinched between the people in The Scarlet Letter and of present civilization.
One of themes that Hawthorne conveys in The Scarlet Letter is that society is more willing to forgive people who ask for forgiveness with humility and generosity than those who demanded it as a right. This theme was conveys using Hester Prynne, a young women who committed adultery. This was considered to be one of the worst crime someone could commit in the Puritan society during the eighteen hundreds, where she resides in. As punishment, Hester was required to wear a scarlet letter "A" upon her garment in order for everyone to recognize her crime. Her society had condemn her, they believed that she "has brought shame upon all of us, and ought to die..."(59) Yet, as time went by, because of the way in which Hester carried herself wearing the scarlet letter, the symbol had taken a new meaning. Although, when the scarlet letter was first place on her bosom it was a symbol of Hester's crime, burden, seclusion, and shame. However, as a result of Hester's generosity and humility the scarlet letter had come to symbolize Hester's strength, philanthropy, and gained her very high respectability in her society.
People all over the world continuously commit sins some are bigger than others and some do more damage. In the book, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a woman, Hester Prynne, is publicly shamed and force to wear a scarlet A upon her bosom for committing adultery. Throughout the book, Hester and her daughter, Pearl, try to adapt to life as an outsider. The two are continuously judged for Hester’s sin, and humiliated, however, they overcome this judgment and are seen in a different way. Hester and Pearl have been publicly shamed, Pearl has been considered an elfish devil like child, and after all the humiliation they were able to turn their lives around.
Through the use of numerous symbols, Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter serves as an allegory for the story of Adam and Eve and its relation to sin, knowledge, and the human condition that is present in human society. Curious for the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, which resulted in the revelation of their “humanness” and expulsion from the “divine garden” as they then suffered the pain and joy of being humans. Just as Adam and Eve were expelled from their society and suffered in their own being, so were Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter. Hester was out casted and shunned, while Dimmesdale suffered under his own guilt. After knowledge of her affair is made known, Hester is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest to symbolize her crime of adultery, and is separated from the Puritan society. Another “A” appears in the story, and is not embroidered, but instead scarred on Dimmesdale’s chest as a symbol of guilt and suffering. Hester’s symbol of guilt comes in the form of her daughter, Pearl, who is the manifestation of her adultery, and also the living version of her scarlet letter. Each of these symbols come together to represent that with sin comes personal growth and advancement of oneself in society as the sinner endures the good and bad consequences.
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a novel about a young woman who commits adultery and is forced to wear the letter A, which symbolizes adultery, on her chest. In this novel, Hawthorne includes many symbols to display hidden meanings, including character symbols to wake up the reader. Irony is an important element as well, used to reveal the hypocrisy of humankind. The Scarlet Letter is a unique blend of characters, irony and symbolism.