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The scarlet letter critical interpretation
Symbolism of the Scarlet Letter
Critically analyse The Scarlet Letter
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In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne characterizes the scaffold as a place of humility and remorse, as well as one of unity and freedom. Located “beneath the eaves of Boston’s earliest church,” the scaffold was a place of penal acts (51). Hester served part of her punishment on this scaffold in front a Puritan population that often came to watch the conviction of criminals. Although the adulterer was publicly humiliated on the scaffold, Hester was united with her daughter and lover on the footsteps of the sacred place. The scaffold is very significant to many of the relationships between Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. The scaffold is first introduced at the beginning of the novel when Hester addresses her punishment for adultery. Although Hester is a criminal, she is beautiful, confident, and independent. She proudly holds her daughter and the embroidered A, both symbols of her wrongdoing, as she approaches the steps of the scaffold. Even though Hester is being publicly humiliated, she is not ashamed, which is continuous throughout her years of punishment. Roger Chillingwort...
The three scaffold scenes bring great significance to the plot of the Scarlet Letter. The novel is based on repenting the sins of adultery. The scaffold represents a place of shame and pity but also of final triumphs. Each scene illustrates the importance of the scaffold behind them with many potent similarities and differences.
A few years later the event is again repeated. It is very similar to the
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," there are three very important scenes that all take place at the town scaffold, a place of great shame in their strict Puritan society. These scenes represent the progression of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale over the course of the story. Each scene involves him in some way and one can easily see that he has changed dramatically in all three.
the height of a mans shoulders above the street . . . . The unhappy culprit
That scaffold holds more importance than just somewhere to condemn prisoners. It is the one place where Dimmesdale felt liberated to say anything he wishes. In Puritan culture, the scaffold is used to humiliate and chastise prisoners, be it witches at the stake, thieves in the stocks, or a murderer hanging from the gallows. In The Scarlet Letter, the scaffold was viewed more as a place of judgment. “Meagre ... was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders, at the scaffold.” (p. 63) Indeed, it was used for castigation, but it was also a place of trial: Hester’s trial was held at the scaffold. Standing upon the platform opens oneself to God and to the world. “They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another.” (p. 186) Being on the scaffold puts oneself in a feeling of spiritual nakedness- where you feel exposed to God, but cleansed. It was the one place where Dimmesdale could find complete reconciliation.
The Scaffold is not only a high view point the in market place but a site where one can see beyond the restraints of town and even time. For one person, " . . . the scaffold of the pillory was the point of view that revealed to Hester Prynne the entire track which she had been treading since her happy infancy (p65)". The experience of the scaffold has a profound effect on Hester. Living on the border between the town and the forest, she learns new freedom while seeing the conformist repression of the town. Hester sees what the townspeople ignore. She soon believes that because of her punishment on the scaffold and her perpetual reminder of it, the scarlet letter, she sees the sins of the entire townspeople and the hypocrisy of keeping them secret. Thus, her time on the scaffold has made her see the truth of the town and its lies.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne?s The Scarlet Letter, the Puritans constantly look down upon sinners like Hester Prynne, both literally and symbolically. The use of the three scaffold scenes throughout the course of the novel proved to be an effective method in proving this theory and showing how Puritan society differs from that of today?s.
She lost all her fiery passion on the scaffold, by which society mocked and watched and she was punished for the sins she committed. The scaffold became the essence of sin and hatred for Hester, Hawthorne created the meaning of this by stating things like the scaffold was “the very ideal of ignominy [and] was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron”. Hester makes her transformation on this scaffold and although she is silent ad still filled with anger, she will never be the same due pain she felt on that scaffold. Through society's punishments and harsh bias, Hester is stripped of all passion and this is continually argued with her change as she wears the scarlet letter. In the beginning, Hester tries to cover it up, but the burn of those eyes who look upon her still stand. ONce in the free spirit environment of the forest and she takes the scarlet A off she becomes happy and passionate once again that even her own daughter doesn’t recognize
In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne three major events occur on the town scaffold. The scaffold serves as a place of public humiliation and shame. Hawthorne places three events that occur on the scaffold that play a major role. The first appearance of the scaffold is when Hester serves her time of public humiliation. The second appearance of the scaffold scene is throughout the middle of the novel when Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale arrive together on the scaffold. Hawthorne then brings the three back together once again in the third scaffold scene to end the tragic story of the Scarlet Letter. The three scaffold scenes play major roles throughout Hester and Dimmesdale’s life.
The first scaffold scene takes place at the very beginning of the story. In this particular scene, Hester has moments before walked from the prison door carrying her baby and donning the scarlet letter, which stands for adultery. She must make this procession in front of the entire town. After the march, Hester is forced to stand alone on the scaffold until an hour past noon.
4. The Scarlet Letter was written and published in 1850. The novel was a product of the Transcendentalist and Romantic period.
He explains that the scaffold that Hester is sentenced to stand upon as punishment is meant to be a comparison to the famous weapon in the French Revolution, the guillotine. Reynolds points out that it was custom in Puritan New England to refer to such places as to where Hester stood as the gallows, not scaffolds. “[…] the central setting of the novel, the scaffold, is, I believe, an historical inaccuracy intentionally used by Hawthorne to develop the theme of revolution” (619). Here he is saying that Hawthorne purposely misused the term in order to spur up themes of revolution. Although he fails to mention Hawthorne’s motive in doing so, it does credibly show the reader that there are possible and deliberate connections made between the French Revolution and The Scarlet
The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in the sixteen hundreds. Hester Prynne is accused of committing adultery in her small puritan settlement but little does the town know that the father is in fact Reverend Dismmesdale. Having sent his wife ahead of him two years before hand, Hester stops her husband in the crowd as she is standing accused on the scaffolding. Hester is given a punishment in the hopes of making her ashamed; however, she turns the mockery into amazement by making the scarlet A into a beautiful piece of patch work. Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, is on the hunt from at that point to find out the child’s father but not even Pearl herself knows. The Scarlet Letter showed how early Americans concentrated their beliefs of church and home in their daily lives. Nathaniel Hawthorne words reflect the flaws in American society during the Puritan settlement. This was also the era of the Salam Witch Trials which Hawthorne’s father played a part in. The central idea reflects that suffering comes from sinning. The Scarlet Letter was the stepping stones that paved future American novels to become so successful.
Hawthorne has perfectly structured The Scarlet Letter around three scaffold scenes. At the first one, located in the very beginning of the novel, Hester openly confesses her sin of adultery in the light of day while Dimmesdale and Chillingworth look on from the crowd that has gathered.
The historical setting is highly significant in the novel since it is intertwined with the public’s belief and values, which shape overall themes of the novel and the main characters’ traits. The main setting of the novel takes place in New England during the middle of the seventeenth century, and the setting is the essential factor that develops the core conflicts among Hester, Dimmesdale, and the Puritan society; in fact, the historical setting itself and the society within it is what Hawthorne intends to reveal to the reader. New England in the seventeenth century was predominately organized around religious authorities, and indeed, a large portion of the population had migrated to the colony of New England with religious purposes. Therefore, the strict and religiously centered historical setting is well demonstrated through Hester’s townspeople when Hester commits adultery. The church authority and the townspeople require Hester to wear the large “A” embroidered scarlet letter, which symbolizes adultery. This act is aligned with the historica...