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In life, everyone has a choice to make. Sometimes those choices become mistakes that a person learns from or allows it to define them. In the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the character Hester Prynne makes a choice that she learns from but would also define the rest of her life. Hawthorne takes the guilt and shame from the choice that was made and puts it into what he calls the scarlet letter “A.” This letter that Hester Prynne wears symbolizes the sin that was committed, but throughout time it begins to have multiple meanings. To many of the Puritans in the colony, the letter “A” stood for Adultery, because of the sin Hester committed with Arthur Dimmesdale ,the minister of the colony. The outcome of this decision led to Hester having a daughter named Pearl. People resented her for these actions and that letter “A” was a reminder to everyone that she was no good. Hester Prynne then became an outcast and excluded herself from the people of the colony. In the book, Hawthorne mentions that Hester lived in a small thatched cottage on the outskirts of town within the verge of the peninsula (Hawthorne 46). It said “her own …show more content…
“The past is gone! Wherefore should we linger upon it now?”(Hawthorne 113) When Hester said this, she took off the letter and flung it into the leaves (Hawthorne 113). Hester immediately felt the burden of depression and shame lifted up from her. By taking that letter off, Hester got rid of everything holding her down in life. She was able to become a new person, the person she wanted to be. Pearl did not accept it at all, and wanted Hester to put the scarlet letter back on (Hawthorne 117). This is another representation of how letting go of the past isn't always the easiest thing to do. Carrying around the weight is one thing, but letting it go and moving forward is another, even when people don't feel the
Reading the Scarlet Letter reminds me of one of my own experience. When I was a fifth grade elementary student, two of my friends and I agreed to cheat on a geography test. On the day of the test, one of my friends was caught. The teacher found the cheat sheet where it showed the handwriting of the three of us. When he was asked who the other two is, he remained silent. The teacher said that he will be punished, standing in the corner of the classroom for one straight week, and it will be lighter if only he told our name. My friend still did not say a word, so he received the punishment. What he did was similar to what Hester Prynne does. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is portrayed as a woman with remarkable strength of character through direct and indirect characterization.
Through the rhetorical device characterization, Hawthorne is able to promote his motive of exposing the audience to the life lesson: People grow stronger by recognizing their own weakness. Hester Prynne, the female protagonist in the Scarlet Letter charged with adultery, is forced to wear the embroidered letter “A” on her chest to symbolize the stigma of her sin. In the beginning of the novel,
The Scarlet Letter starts off by throwing Hester Prynne into drama after being convicted for adultery in a Puritan area. Traveling from Europe to America causes complications in her travel which also then separates her from her husband, Roger Chillingworth for about three years. Due to the separation, Hester has an affair with an unknown lover resulting in having a child. Ironically, her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, is a Reverend belonging to their church who also is part of the superiors punishing the adulterer. No matter how many punishments are administered to Hester, her reactions are not changed. Through various punishments, Hester Prynne embraces her sin by embroidering a scarlet letter “A” onto her breast. However, she is also traumatized deep within from everything she’s been through. Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts this story of sin by using rhetorical devices such as allusion, alliteration and symbolism.
Throughout the novel, Hawthorn gives many reasons that support both sides of the argument over the affects that both the scarlet letter and Hester have on eachother. Yet, when symbolism depicts the scarlet letter to be Pearl, the argument between Hester and the letter is best epitomized in the following quotation. "In giving her existence, a great law had been broken; and the result was a being, whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder…" (p.62) The quotation, if examined with the thought that "her" refers to the scarlet letter, depicts that although Hester's courage allows the letter to be seen as beautiful, there still remains a shadow of haunting disorder that the letter casts over Hester's life. Hester shapes her life so that it remains in fragile balance with the ominous shadow of the letter.
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 letter "A," worn on Hester's bodice, is a symbol of her adultery against Roger Chillingworth. This letter is meant to be worn in shame, and to make Hester feel unwanted. "Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment . . ." Hester is ashamed of her sin, but she chooses not to show it. She committed this sin in the heat of passion, and fully admits it because, though she is ashamed, she also received her greatest treasure, Pearl, out of it. She is a very strong woman to be able to hold up so well, against what she must face. Many would have fled Boston, and sought a place where no one knew of her great sin. Hester chose to stay though, which showed a lot of strength and integrity. Any woman with enough nerve to hold up against a town which despised her very existence, and to stay in a place where her daughter is referred to as a "devil child” is a very tough woman.
In the beginning of The Scarlet Letter, the letter is understood as a label of punishment and sin being publicized. Hester Prynne bears the label of “A” signifining adulterer upon her chest. Because of this scorching red color label she becomes the outcast of her society. She wears this symbol of punishment and it become a burden throughout her life. The letter “produces only a reflection of her scarlet letter; likewise, the townspeople's image of Hester revolves around her sin. The evil associated with Hester's actions and the letter on her chest consume all aspects of her life, concealing her true beauty, mind, and soul” (R. Warfel 421-425). Society pushed blame upon Hester Prynne, and these events lead to the change of her life. The Puritans whom Prynne is surround by view the letter as a symbol from the devil, controversially some individuals look upon the letter, sigh and fell sympathy towards her because they have or are involved in this same situation. Nonetheless the haunting torture Hester Prynne battles daily drags on, Nathaniel Hawthorne shows this torture “of an impulse and passionate nature. She had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely wreaking itself in every variety of insult but...
In the book Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1642 Boston, Massachusetts, Hester Prynne has become a women to be respected. Hester Prynne was a mother of a child who was conceived as to be a “sin”. Pearl, Hester 's child was conceived while Hester 's husband was away.This exposed Hester for committing adultery, therefore that 's how she obtained the “A” for life.The “A” stands for adultery which is the Scarlet Letter .Hester has provided many examples of why she should be respected such as; her integrity,coming forth with her sins, and her inner strength as a character.
Through Hester and the symbol of the scarlet letter, Hawthorne reveals how sin can be utilized to change a person for the better, in allowing for responsibility, forgiveness, and a renewed sense of pride. In a Puritan society that strongly condemns adultery one would expect Hester to leave society and never to return again, but that does not happen. Instead, Hester says, “Here…had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom.” Hes...
A change is to make or become different. In the Scarlet Letter change is very evident in the main character Hester Prynne. Hester has undergone both physical and emotional changes that have made her more acceptable to the Puritan Society.
As Hester wears the scarlet letter, the reader can feel how much of an outcast Hester becomes. When walking through town, “…she never raised her head to receive their greeting. If they were resolute to accost her, she laid her finger on the scarlet letter and passed on” (Hawthorne, 127).She believes that she is not worthy of the towns acknowledgments and chooses to ignore them. The guilt that now rests in Hester is overwhelming to her and is a reason of her change in personality.
The letter ‘A’ that she wore on her bosom plastered Hester’s scandal all over the community. Pearl, the daughter of the sinner’s, was being parented by Hester, which constantly reminded her of the sin everyday. The community looked down upon Hester and Pearl, but instead of letting it get to them, Hester accepted the consequences therefore she tried to move on. Although the family dealt with a lot of criticism from fellow Puritans, they did not let those thoughts get into their heads. Hester was a popular seamstress in her time, even though she was unable to make wedding veils because of the sin she committed. “Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or suchlike heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!” (Hawthorne 49). The sin made Hester determined because she came to self-realization and broke free.
Hester Prynne committed a crime so severe that it changed her life into coils of torment and defeat. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester is publicly recognized as an adulteress and expelled from society. Alongside the theme of isolation, the scarlet letter, or symbol of sin, is meant to shame Hester but instead transforms her from a woman of ordinary living into a stronger person.
In the novel the Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the main character Hester Prynne sinned by committing adultery which changes her identity while she wears the Scarlet Letter. “In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity” (Erik Erikson). The way the scarlet letter defines Hester as someone who sinned in her society. The way that her society reacted to her with the scarlet letter, made her question her identity of who she is with the scarlet letter. Hester is forced to change her identity and the society around her looks at her in a different eye than what she was before she received the scarlet letter.
Hester realized that she cannot live her life behind a curtain. Hester now would walk in town with her head up high showing that she is a different person and a stronger person. She didn’t care what people had to say about her, all she knew was that she more than just a sinner. Hester was very good at sewing, which she continued to do as a job, and to gain her reputation back. Hester took her seamstress abilities and made things for the governor, also she made her own letter “A” which was a colorful and more pretty one. Knowing that she was a good seamstress, women on the streets spoke up "She hath good skill at her needle, that's certain, but did ever a woman before this brazen hussy, contrive such a way of showing it!" (Hawthorne 46). The ladies that spoke up were almost jealous that her letter did not resemble a sin, it resembled an artsy person with a great imagination. Hester started showing her great appreciation for Pearl by raising her the way that any kid should be raised. She knew that Pearl would grow up being the sinners daughter, but Hester knew that Pearl would know the truth. Hester taught Pearl that everyone sins, it's just whether they own up to their mistakes or they sweep them under the carpet. Hester is owning up to the mistake that she made and is going to make the best out of the