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The Sins of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter
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.
Hester Prynne’s sin was adultery. This sin was regarded very seriously by the Puritans, and was often punished by death. Hester’s punishment was to endure a public shaming on a scaffold for three hours and wear a scarlet letter "A" on her chest for the rest of her life in the town. Although Hawthorne does not pardon Hester’s sin, he considers it less serious than those of Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. Hester’s sin was a sin of passion. This sin was openly acknowledged as she wore the "A" on her chest. Hester did not commit the greatest sin of the novel. She did not deliberately mean to commit her sin or mean to hurt others.
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.
Hester is indeed a sinner, adultery is no light matter, even today. On the other hand, her sin has brought her not evil, but good. Her charity to the poor, her comfort to the broken-hearted, her unquestionable presence in times of trouble are all direct results of her quest for repe...
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Works Cited and Consulted
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Hester Prynne has a fairly unconventional approach to her “sin.” She does not feel ashamed of her wrong and therefore does not feel guilt as others in The Scarlet Letter do. She is marked with a large “A” for her sin of adultery and embraces this by embroidering the letter. "And never had ...
Smiles, Samuel. "The Scarlet Letter." The Critical Temper. Ed. Martin Tucker. New York City: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1962. 266.
By Hester committing a sin, they weren’t being sentenced to eternal damnation, she was. All the townspeople did was make Hester’s life a living hell. However, ironically, Hawthorne contrasts the goodness and strength with the cruelty of the religious Puritans. The letter ‘A’ upon her breast harsh cruel enough. It was “represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance. In truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it” (Hawthorne 97). Hester’s identity was swallowed by her marking. Nobody knew the true Hester Prynne because the society connected the letter to her morality. Hester wasn’t a person who should be damned to Hell, but the Puritans thought so when they saw her chest. Hester almost escaped this life of being enslaved by the letter, but “Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but out loud, from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation” (Hawthorne 180). She chose to live her life with the embroidery upon her chest,
A few positive leadership qualities Jack possesses are qualities such as bravery, authoritativeness and dedication. Jack illustrates bravery when he grabs a hold of the boar and risks getting wounded. The dedication Jack exhibits is apparent throughout the novel by the way he dedicates his time to finding meat for the helpless boys. Lastly, Jack's authoritativeness is depicted when the boys and littuns all obey his orders. Jack's authoritativeness is apparent when he says “Go on!” and the two savages respond together by saying “The chief has spoken” (155). These lines demonstrate that the two savages think highly of Jack and respect his authority. To conclude, Jack Merridew possesses many positive leadership qualities that would make him an effective leader of the group of lost and scared boys.
Humber, N. (2009). The occasional D & C. Canadian Journal of Rural Medicine, 14 (3), 118. Retrieved from http://www.cma.ca/multimedia/staticContent/HTML/N0/l2/cjrm/vol-14/issue-3/pdf/pg115.pdf
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...
Griswold, Rufus Wilmot. "The Scarlet Letter." The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors. Ed. Charles Wells Moulton. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith Publishing, 1989. 341-371.
Many in the juvenile justice field have tried to understand the cause of juvenile delinquency. There are many different theories describe the cause and effect of variables and how they react. However, through much research, we have concluded there is not just one single path or journey that determines the fate of the juvenile. There are many different risk factors that build in order to increase a youth's chance of becoming an offender. This is kind of like a domino effect. Risk factors are described as the characteristics that present themselves to determine if the individual or youth will become a delinquent. These factors may include; home life, income status, gender, and social. It can either be one or all that play a part in the way the
Gerber, John C. "Form and Content in The Scarlet Letter." The Scarlet Letter: A Norton Critical Edition. Eds. Seymour Gross, Sculley Bradley, Richmond Croom Beatty, and E. Hudson Long. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1988.
Four empirical journal articles have been chosen to identify what contributes to juvenile delinquency using the selected theories previously mentioned. These art...
“Children are a product of their environment”, is something I constantly hear when a either a young person is acting out or a young person doesn’t look “socially acceptable”. Delinquency and children’s behavior was something I have grown to become interested in during our class; thus leading me to analyze different theories on youth and the factors that prompted the onset of delinquent and how they continue to sustain their negative behavior. I personally do not completely agree with any one theory that applies to youth and child delinquency, yet there are points within each theory that I can agree with. In the following pages I will describe theories such as Choice Theory, Biosocial Theory, and Differential Association Theory.
A critical issue, perhaps most injurious to our futures, involves the criminal tendencies of our youth. Juvenile delinquency is without a doubt one of the most crucial topics that we face in our society today. Children and teens do not only shape our future, but will also pave the footsteps for future generations. What prompts this criminal behavior? And why is the proportion of delinquents in society seemingly increasing? As we will see, many factors play a role in molding personality; these factors include gender, family, and schools.
Juvenile delinquency is a prevalent issue that society faces, regardless if the community is primitive or modern, rich or poor, and so on. Juveniles are juveniles under 18 years of age. Delinquent acts range from something as minor as being out past curfew to more serious acts like physical assaults. Strain Theory suggests juvenile delinquency is at its highest during ages 10-17, because of several factors: desire autonomy, financially dependency upon their guardians, and often experience a lack of social support from family and friends. In the past, there have been multiple theories that examined juvenile delinquency from a biological or social lens. For example, Lombroso’s biological theory claimed that kids resulted in committing acts for
The historical context, psychological exploration of the characters, and realistic dialogue make this fictional novel more realistic. The symbolic representation of the scarlet letter, Pearl, and the settings along with the morals taught by the stories of the characters make the novel more insightful, symbolic, and allegorical. These aspects of The Scarlet Letter make the novel a brilliant combination of the literary devices of Realism, symbolism, and allegory, and fill the novel with profundity, suspense, romance, and tragedy.