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Good and evil in literature
Good and evil in literature
Good versus evil in literature
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Imagine your inner soul trying to rip out of your body all tell people of all of your sins. Also, imagine your sin is floating around letting you see others sin. Finally, you are a product of sin, your life is full of evil, and torture. Until your sin is revealed by your unknown father. These events happened to the character in Nathaniel Hawthorns The Scarlett Letter. Their sin affects the way that these characters live. The Nature of sin can bring the worst and best out of people. Whether it is hidden or know, the sin can bring good and bad things to the people who have sinned. Dimmsdale’s sin was locked inside him, as he ended up breaking down and decoding sick, and then died after revealing his sin. Hester’s sin was know and she was able to be a normal part of society. Being a product of sin, Pearl was a demon or became like the devil, until Dimmsdale reveled his sin and she became normal. The nature of peoples sin dictates what your life is going to belike. When your sin is hidden it can really harm you. As Dimmsdale’s sin gets worse he gets sicker and eventually it overcomes him. “…To put the child to due and stated examination in the catechism, at thy hands or Master Dimmesdale’s… The young minister, on ceasing to speak, had withdrawn a few steps from the group, and stood with his face partially concealed in the heavy fold of the window curtains.”(Scarlet Letter page 105.) The way that Dimmsdale hid his face after the men said they should look in Pearl’s face and see who see looks like shows he is trying to hid his identity from them because he knows he looks like Pearl a bit. “Such was the young clergyman’s condition, and so imminent the prospect that his dawning light would be extinguished, all untimely, when... ... middle of paper ... ...as revile her. “‘…Dear little Pearl, wilt thou kiss me now? Thou wouldst not, yonder, in the forest! but now thou wilt?’ Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken… Pearl’s errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled.” When Pearl’s dad dies and she kisses him, her curse is broken because she was finally acknowledged as the daughter so she assimilated him into her life helping them both become better in the end. When all of the sins are revealed and the consequences handed out, people become good. What ever the nature of the sin good and bad things can come, mo matter if it is known or hidden. That when your sin are known or hidden life can be good or bad. When all sins come out it might kill you, but it might release you from being a demon. Everyone sins and than whatever type of sin it is, it will bring out the best in you or in might just kill you.
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.
From the moment she is born in the cold, heartless prison, Pearl is placed under scrutiny. The townspeople see her as a visible reminder of sin, and it isn't long until even her own mother searches for evil in her. The girl is described as "the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!"(Hawthorne 103). With her fascination from an early age with the scarlet letter, Hester believes that Pearl's very reason for existence is to torment her mother. Hester fails to realize that the letter is just something bright and significant to which Pearl reacts; instead, she sees every glance, every word aimed at the letter, every touch of Pearl's tiny fingers to her bosom as an added torture resulting from her adultery. Hester, considering Pearl's very existence, goes so far as to question if the impish child is even her own. "Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!"(Hawthorne 99) she tells Pearl, only half-jokingly. In her own way, she wonders whether Pearl was sent to her by God or by a demon wishing to cause her pain. She is not alone in this speculation; many of the town's citizens believe there is something of the Devil in Pearl.
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.
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.
People living in Boston, Massachusetts looked up to and respected Dimmesdale because he was a minister. One of his sins was his inability to publicly acknowledge that he committed adultery with Hester and that he is the father of Pearl, Hester’s daughter. However, adultery was not his biggest sin. His biggest sin is hypocrisy. In chapter ten, he speaks of the concealment of his sins, he says, “It may be that they are kept silent by the very constistution of their nature. Or-can we not suppose it-guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God’s glory and man’s welfare…no evil of the past be redeemed by better service (pg. 137).” While trying to conceal his sins, they take over his conscience and literally confess themselves during his acts of madness.
Sin has been present since the beginning of time and will forever remain. As each era has passed, people have had different views on how sin should be recognized and punished. In the Puritan times, sin was usually punishable by death. Therefore, some sins were purposefully hidden. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale becomes a victim to his own concealed sin. Dimmesdale is a partner in adultery with Hester Prynne, the wearer of the scarlet letter. He is living a lie, and it is tearing his guilty soul apart. Another character with secrets and sins of his own is Roger Chillingworth. Chillingworth’s hidden sin is revenge, and it captures his whole purpose in life. It is obvious that both of these men have secret sins, but how do these hidden transgressions affect their lives? While Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth are both sinful, they are each affected differently by their sins -physically, emotionally, and mentally.
We are all sinners. Although one may try hard not to sin, all humans eventually succumb at some time or another to sin. While people may not able to avoid the fate which awaits them, the power of free will allows people to decide how they will respond to sin. While some may respond with guilt and regret, others may react with a sense of redemption and a renewed sense of responsibility.
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.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Mr. Dimmesdale’s greatest fear is that the townspeople will find out about his sin of adultery with Hester Prynne. Mr. Dimmesdale fears that his soul could not take the shame of such a disclosure, as he is an important moral figure in society. However, in not confessing his sin to the public, he suffers through the guilt of his sin, a pain which is exacerbated by the tortures of Roger Chillingworth. Though he consistently chooses guilt over shame, Mr. Dimmesdale goes through a much more painful experience than Hester, who endured the public shame of the scarlet letter. Mr. Dimmesdale’s guilt is much more damaging to his soul than any shame that he might have endured.
Her sin was not to seek revenge, but instead was out of passion, and thus the child was born. One would think the child was punishment enough, but the way sin’s effect chose to pounce on her was from the outward judgment of the towns people. “ Clergymen paused in the street to address words of exhortation, that brought a crowd, with its mingled grin and frown, around the poor, sinful woman. If she entered a church, testing to share the Sabbath smile of the Universal Father, it was often her mishap to find herself the text of the discourse” (Chapter 5 p. 78). Since her sin was revealed to everyone, the constant judgement and actions of others continued to take their toll. The outcome of her sin therefore proved most effective in bringing her down by attacking from the outside. Not only did the townspeople outwardly scar her heart, but so did her own child. Out in the woods, Pearl was only able to identify her mother by the gloom the scarlet token had. “. . . As if there were a withering spell in the sad letter, her beauty, the warmth and richness of her womanhood, departed, like fading sunshine; and a gray shadow seemed to fall across her. . .” (Chapter 19 p.190). When Hester did not wear the letter and was back to her beautiful, happy self, Pearl would not approach her. Similar to the townspeople, Pearls connection between the sinful emblem and Hester takes a toll on the poor woman’s mind.
Arthur Dimmesdale's soul was jeopardized by Roger Chillingworth's intentions, which were to ruin him, but his only messiah, is Pearl. Dimmesdale must embrace Pearl as his daughter and publicly confess to be free from his self-inflicted torture.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the reader is able to observe how one sin devastates three lives. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth are all guilty of succumbing to temptation, anger, and desire, causing all to fit the definition of a sinner. Yet, Chillingworth's iniquities raise him up above Hester and Dimmesdale on the level of diabolic acts.
Universally, sin is known to devour one’s soul. This theme is actively portrayed throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. However, he also focuses on how sin can occasionally save a person, but how secret sin is destructive; secret sin being sins that are committed, but not shown. This secret sin is known only to the person who committed the sin which in many cases is more damaging. Through the characters of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, themes of both sin and secret sin are actively portrayed. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne shows many different ways in which sin can be handled and how it can change one’s character. Through the usage of characters and symbols in The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne actively portrays the theme of secret sin, and how in many cases it can eat away one’s soul; however, sin in itself also generates new character in a person that would not have been revealed before.
As the cold, metal bar inches closer and closer to my face, the eminent threat of the 250 lb weight becomes insistently more overbearing. My chest is concaving from the excruciating pressure and it’s all I can do to not give in and fall prisoner to the weight. However, the end result is undeniably inevitable: the weight will crush me completely. This feeling of intense pressure and the struggle bench pressing ensues is highly comparable to the overwhelming effects that sin can cause in one’s life. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the complicated nature of sin is revealed through the way that sin affects multiple characters’ souls and entire lives. This is more specifically demonstrated by Chillingworth, Dimmesdale, and Hester. Throughout the novel, Roger Chillingworth’s form of sin shows how sin can cause the evil nature of mankind to be brought out and how sin can consume someone’s entire life. Similarly, Dimmesdale’s character reveals how sin can deplete even the strongest human being by way of guilt. The complexity of sin is demonstrated even more thoroughly by Hester’s sin that causes constant ignominy, but ultimately has a more positive affect on her life. All of these three characters are examples of the major impacts that sin can have on your life. Chillingworth’s encounter with sin caused him to turn his whole self in to the devil and undergo a dramatic transformation of his heart and soul.
The Scarlet Letter is a blend of realism, symbolism, and allegory. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses historical settings for this fictional novel and even gives historical background information for the inspiration of the story of Hester Prynne in the introduction of The Scarlet Letter, ‘The Custom-House’. The psychological exploration of the characters and the author’s use of realistic dialogue only add to the realism of the novel. The most obvious symbol of the novel is the actual scarlet letter ‘A’ that Hester wears on her chest every day, but Hawthorne also uses Hester’s daughter Pearl and their surroundings as symbols as well. Allegory is present as well in The Scarlet Letter and is created through the character types of several characters in the novel.