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Sin, punishment, and revenge in the scarlet letter
Sin crime and punishment in the scarlet letter thesis journal research paper
Sin crime and punishment in the scarlet letter thesis journal research paper
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Recommended: Sin, punishment, and revenge in the scarlet letter
Sensibility vs. Punishment
After reading The Scarlet Letter, one might ponder: What certain concepts did Nathaniel Hawthorne use to convey his beliefs? One of the concepts Hawthorne intentionally emphasized was sensibility. The dictionary defines sensibility as “peculiar or excessive susceptibility to pleasurable or painful impression.” These pleasurable or painful impressions are shown when characters use their five senses. Touch, sight, and sound seem to be the most effective senses used. One of Hawthorne’s underlying themes was that there are consequences for sin. Throughout the novel susceptibility played a role in causing and punishing sin.
The sense of touch was highly important in the novel. It displayed the consequences of sin and actually
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne attempted to expose the varying ways in which different people deal with lingering guilt from sins they have perpetrated. The contrasting characters of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale ideally exemplified the differences in thought and behavior people have for guilt. Although they were both guilty of committing the same crime, these two individuals differed in that one punished themselves with physical and mental torture and the other chose to continue on with their life, devoting it to those less fortunate than they.
In an introductory paragraph to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s works, Perkins and Perkins say that “Hawthorne elevated some of the darkest events of the colonial period and transformed them into universal themes and questions”(Perkins 433). One of these themes is that of the penalty of sin. In Romans 6:23, Paul says that “the wages of sin is death” and Hawthorne seems to share this view, or at least some version of it. This view is prevalent in his novel The Scarlet Letter. In it, the penalty for Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s sin is a family that is disfigured and unnatural.
Guilt and shame haunt all three of the main characters in The Scarlet Letter, but how they each handle their sin will change their lives forever. Hester Prynne’s guilt is publicly exploited. She has to live with her shame for the rest of her life by wearing a scarlet letter on the breast of her gown. Arthur Dimmesdale, on the other hand, is just as guilty of adultery as Hester, but he allows his guilt to remain a secret. Instead of telling the people of his vile sin, the Reverend allows it to eat away at his rotting soul. The shame of what he has done slowly kills him. The last sinner in this guilty trio is Rodger Chillingworth. This evil man not only hides his true identity as Hester’s husband, but also mentally torments Arthur Dimmesdale. The vile physician offers his ‘help’ to the sickly Reverend, but he gives the exact opposite. Chillingworth inflicts daily, mental tortures upon Arthur Dimmesdale for seven long years, and he enjoys it. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth are all connected by their sins and shame, but what they do in regards to those sins is what sets them apart from each other.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter silhouettes the human experience as being intricately woven with equal parts loving bliss and guilty anguish. He describes, from different characters’ perspectives, that only through one does the other have meaning. That living is a sensation fully encountered exclusively from naked emotion which is tended toward, the liberty to articulate those truths, and solidarity. Pearl becomes the embodiment of the former, who is described from the very beginning as an unearthly “creature”, the second by Arthur Dimmesdale, slowly killed by his secret sin, and the latter by both as they discover the lawless triumph of pleasure and pain. Over the course of the novel’s
Guilt, shame, and penitence are just a few of the emotions that are often associated with a great act of sin. Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale, a highly respected minister of a 17th century Puritan community, is true example of this as he was somehow affected by all of these emotions after committing adultery. Due to the seven years of torturous internal struggle that finally resulted in his untimely death, Mr. Dimmesdale is the character who suffered the most throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Mr. Dimmesdale’s ever present guilt and boundless penance cause him an ongoing mental struggle of remorse and his conscience as well as deep physical pain from deprivation and self inflicted wounds. The external influence of the members of his society
In the novel The Scarlet Letter and the short story “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporates romantic elements, such as beauty, truth, innocence, and sin, in his criticism of Puritan societies. In both texts, Hawthorne argues that all people, even those in strictly religious societies with corrupted standards, are capable of sin. Hawthorne uses symbolism and light and dark imagery to convey his argument.
Nathanial Hawthorne, an American author during the 19th century witnessed the power of sin to wreak havoc not only to an individual but a whole community. His novel The Scarlet Letter expresses this very idea by exposing the follies of mankind and the potentially detrimental effects of sin trough Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth who all affected by sin in different ways. Utilizing powerful symbols and light/dark imagery, Hawthorne conveys to the readers, through these characters, the power of how one’s response to sin can positively change an individual or gradually destroy one by spreading like a contagious disease and ultimately consuming the victim.
though out the rest of the book. One of the main character's that is affected
thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any"
Hawthorne's statement through Chillingworth offers insight into Dimmesdale and Chillingworth along with a representation of Hawthorne's disapproval of the Puritan values. This disapproval is the driving force of the novel, and it underlies the relationship between Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the prevailing greater justice of God. The contrast of the Puritans' justice and God's makes the message of the story greater than a love story or a story of a sin. With this theme, The Scarlet Letter becomes a comparison of the flawed justice of humans and the divine justice of God.
Sins are common and known as mistakes, but in the Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne, those mistakes were the cause of suffering at the hands of others. A wrong doing by a Puritan named Hester Pryne caused her to live her life with guilt. She was judged by the Puritan community for the adulterous affair she had with the minister of Boston. Puritans have a strict religion that had many rules which needed to be followed or would lead to severe punishment. Hawthorne indicated a misdeed affecting someone’s life negatively by using symbols like Pearl, the scarlet letter, and the scaffold.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, many of the characters suffer from the tolls of sin, but none as horribly as Hester's daughter Pearl. She alone suffers from sin that is not hers, but rather that of her mother's. From the day she is conceived, Pearl is portrayed as an offspring of vice. She is introduced into the discerning, pitiless domain of the Puritan religion from inside a jail; a place untouched by light, as is the depth of her mother's sin. The austere Puritan ways punish Hester through banishment from the community and the church, simultaneously punishing Pearl in the process. This isolation leads to an unspoken detachment and animosity between her and the other Puritan children. Thus we see how Pearl is conceived through sin, and how she suffers when her mother and the community situate this deed upon her like the scarlet letter on her mother's bosom.
Edmund Fuller and B. Jo Kinnick in “Stories Derived from New England Living” state that Hawthorne liked to “explore uncertainties of belief that trouble a man’s heart and mind” (31). Clarice Swisher in “Nathaniel Hawthorne: a Biography” states that Hawthorne’s interest tended toward the heart and the psychological effects of these moral and ethical issues” (13). A. N. Kaul considers Hawthorne “preeminently a ‘psychological’” writer – “burrowing, to his utmost ability, into the depths of our common nature, for the purposes of psychological romance. . . . He was deeply preoccupied with the modern themes of alienation, isolation, and guilt consciousness – and with modern spiritual problems generally” (2). There appears to be more agreement among literary critics regarding the interpretation of Hawthorne as a “psychological” writer than upon any other aspect of his writing.
Revenge is the act of retaliating in order to get even with someone for the wrongs they have done. In the novel “The Scarlet Letter,” the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses Roger Chillingworth to reap revenge on Arthur Dimmesdale for his affair with his wife, Hester Prynne. Chillingworth becomes so devoted to revenge that is all his life revolves around. Chillingworth then devotes the rest of his life to taking revenge on Dimmesdale.
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter revolves around the theme of sin and the severe effects of sin on the mind, body, and soul. Unique sins were committed by several main characters in the novel. For the duration of the novel Hawthorne indicates that sin, no matter how frivolous or consequential, is still sin. There have been various literary discussions on precisely which character exemplifies the worst sin, but Hawthorne cultivates each sin throughout his novel, seeking to get the audience to appreciate his reasoning.