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Puritanism as a symbol for Nathaniel Hawthorne
Puritanism as a symbol for Nathaniel Hawthorne
Symbolism paper on the scarlet letter
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The Powerful Symbol of the Scarlet Letter
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne's scarlet
token liberates her more than it punishes her. First of all, Hester's soul is
freed by her admission of her crime; by enduring her earthly punishment, Hester
is assured of a place in the heavens. Also, though her appearance is much
hampered by the scarlet letter, her mind is freed by it, that an intellectual
passion rises from her isolation and suffering. Finally, it defines her
identity, for the letter makes Hester the woman that she is; it gives her roots,
character, and a uniqueness to her being that sets her apart from the other
Puritans. The scarlet letter is indeed a blessing to Hester Prynne, more than
the curse she believes it to be.
The scarlet symbol of ignominy may have defiled Hester's public image,
yet it has been a benefit rather than a bane to her soul, for by admitting her
crime to the crowd, her soul is freed from two hells: first, the fiery pit
where she would otherwise go after death, and second, the own personal hell
Hester will create for herself if she had chosen to hide her sin in her heart.
Though it was ordered for Hester to wear the letter, it was still her own choice
to make it in a vivid scarlet, "so fantastically embroidered and illuminated
upon her bosom." Hester chose red as the color of her brand of shame, to
declare to the rest of the townspeople that she is prepared to acknowledge her
sin, instead of denying it; she could have chosen to wear her "A" in a plain and
nondistinct color, to escape the townspeople's disdain. By displaying her guilt
however, she is granted the opportunity to face her punishment bravely, thus
through her public humiliation, she achieves freedom from the personal guilt of
not suffering enough for her crimes. Furthermore, "the scarlet letter,
forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester's breast, as if it had been red-hot."
The scarlet A's glowing embers, scorching they may be, also serve to heal, for
the pain they inflict on Hester enables her to properly atone for her sin; by
devoting this lifetime to repentance and expiation, she would receive relief in
The central theme in The Scarlet Letter is that manifested sin will ostracize one from society and un-confessed sin will lead to the destruction of the inner spirit. Hawthorne uses the symbol of the scarlet letter to bring out this idea. In the novel, Hester is forced to wear the scarlet letter A (the symbol of her sin) because she committed adultery with the clergyman, Dimmesdale. Because the public's knowledge of her sin, Hester is excluded physically, mentally, and socially from the normal society of the Puritan settlement. She lives on the outskirts of town in a small cottage where she makes her living as a seamstress. Though she is known to be a great sewer amongst the people, Hester is still not able to sew certain items, such as a new bride's veil. Hester also has no interaction with others; instead she is taunted, if not completely ignored, by all that pass her by. Despite the ill treatment of the society, Hester's soul is not corrupted. Instead, she flourishes and improves herself in spite of the burden of wearing the scarlet letter and she repeatedly defies the conventional Puritan thoughts and values by showing what appears to us as strength of character. Her good works, such as helping the less fortunate, strengthen her inner spirit, and eventually partially welcome her back to the society that once shunned her.
Hester’s sin is that her passions and love were of more importance to her than the Puritan moral code. This is shown when she says to Dimmesdale, "What we did had a consecration of its own. We felt it so! We said so to each other!" Hester fully acknowledged her guilt and displayed it with pride to the world. This was obvious by the way she displayed the scarlet letter. It was elaborately designed as if to show Hester was proud.
Kellner, Douglas. "Expressionism and Rebellion.'" Passion and Rebellion: The Expressionist Heritage. Eds. Stephen Eric Bronner & Douglas Kellner. New York City, NY: Columbia University Press, 1988. 3-39. Print.
Although Hester accepts the Puritan’s punishment like putting her in jail and standing on the scaffold, she does not allow her emotions to show on the outside. Instead she keeps the guilt she feels inside in the same way John Proctor hides his guilt from the Puritan community.
Wearing the scarlet letter was done to please society, but it also maintained her individuality. She respected the rules placed, but she didn’t let it dictate her life entirely. Hester’s strength roots from her indifference with society’s opinion. Resulting from her punishment of her scarlet letter arose the purity of her new independent moral code. With the scarlet letter, Hester became much more independent, and began to follow her own morals, not those of others. the scarlet letter may have consumed her exterior, but inside she was stronger than anyone could imagine. She made her own choices, and by doing so she knew for herself what was right and what
The German Expressionism was a period that came following the devastation of World War I, it came when the people of Germany needed something to claim as their own. The expressionism movement gave Germany just that; it helped them not only in the filmmaking industry, but also in their personal lives. The German Expressionism changed the way we look at and view films. The German Expressionism altered, for the better, the way that films were made back then and the way that they are made today.
Black smoke stained the sky and scarlet blood darkened the earth, as global war, once again, ravaged twentieth-century society. The repercussions of the Second World War rippled across the Atlantic and spread like an infectious disease. As the morality of humankind appeared to dissipate with each exploding bomb, anxiety, frustration, and hopelessness riddled the American public and began to spill into the art of New York City’s avant-garde (Paul par. 4). By the mid-1940s, artists reeling from the unparalleled violence, brutality, and destruction of war found a shared “vision and purpose” in a new artistic movement: Abstract Expressionism (Chave 3). Critics considered the most prominent artists of the movement to comprise the New York School
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.
Hester Prynne's guilt is the result of her committing adultery, which has a significant effect on her life. Hester is publicly seen with the scarlet letter when she first emerges out of the cold dark prison. "It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity and enclosing her in a sphere by herself" (49). The spell that is mentioned is the scarlet letter, "so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom" (49). The scarlet letter is what isolates her from everyone else because it symbolizes sin. Hester is in her very own sphere, where her sin affects her livelihood and has completely cut her off from the world. Her entrance into the sphere marks the beginning of her guilt and it occurs when she is in the prison after her first exposure to the crowd. The prison marks the beginning of a new life for Hester, a life full of guilt and seclusion. Her problem is that her shame is slowly surfacing while she faces the crowd realizing that she has been stripped of all her pride and everything that was important to her in the past. The lasting effect of Hester's sin is the shame that she now embodies due to her committing adultery. The shame that is ass...
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.
In the first chapters of the novel, Hester was punished to wear an "A" on her chest at all times. The "A" is a punishment for the adultery she committed with the towns own Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Instead of making it into something that people looked down upon, as something horrific and disgusting on her chest, she made it look like a beautiful, gleaming gem. She made it out of the most gorgeous sparkling gold threads that caught everyone's eye. A quote in chapter two described the scarlet letter as "so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself." That shows how she is a confident and very individual person. No other woman would have as much courage as she did to make a punishment into an attraction.
Hester had committed the sin of adultery. Hester is hidden behind her scarlet letter where she cannot show her identity. Because the way a sin can define a person is by defining their identity. The scarlet letter defines Hester as someone who sinned in her society. Her society reacted to her with the scarlet letter, which 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
Hester’s inner strength is shown through her physical characteristics. She is a tall woman compared to some of the other women of her time (Hawthorne 37). It also states she is very woman like and the people were assuming prison would take her beauty from her. Instead, they were startled to see her beauty shining out, despite her old, worn, prison clothes (Hawthorne 37). Hester also has a talent for sewing, and uses that talent to make the scarlet letter on her chest a beautiful sight. Hawthorne says it is “so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom” (Hawthorne 37). She turned what was supposed to be a punishment, into an accessory.
One might ask, "Since most artwork is used as a way for an artist to express him or herself, what makes this expression period anything special?" On the general level "Expressionistic art, whether literature, painting, music, or cinema, often involves intense psychic disturbance and distortion in the perspective adopted by the artwork." "It is remote from the objective or realistic portrayals of the world, as well as from the happier emotions." To bring a more defined meaning to the overall theory of expressionism, two philosophers play a large role. The first notarized expressionistic philosopher was the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy who was followed by his counterpart R.G. Collingwood: a twentieth-century English philosopher. Together they hold the two best known expositions of the expression theory.