In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne discusses the issues of guilt, pain, and truth. For many people, it is hard to accept the faults of their own failures. Most do not acknowledge the reality of their lives, and wind up suffering for their mistakes. Guilt and Sin are bad and also cause pain. Hester Prynne endures in agony and pain because of the mistake she made. In the novel, Hester rarely gives up hope. Through her suffering, Hester maintains to keep her dignity.
Hester is admired because of her strong will, and her ability to ignore other's views of her. "In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbors” (Hawthorne 50). The townspeople had no right to determine Hester’s punishment. God can only make this type of judgment. She also expresses her best qualities when she stands up to Governor Bellingham, and she confronts him about Pearl. Hester, being proud, headstrong, and confident, faces him successfully and convinces Governor Bellingham into letting her keep Pearl. She is not afraid of much in her life, especially for standing up for her family. She gains knowledge each day of her life and continues to live a fierce life. “This badge hath taught me—it daily teaches me—it is teaching me at this mom...
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a truly outstanding author. His detailed descriptions and imagery will surely keep people interested in reading The Scarlet Letter for years to come. In writing this book he used themes evident throughout the entirety of the novel. These themes are illustrated in what happens to the characters and how they react. By examining how these themes affect the main characters, Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, one can obtain a better understanding of what Hawthorne was trying to impress upon his readers.
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.
Hester Prynne is a character who gave up everything, even love, for her child. Hester Prynne sacrificed her peace, her beauty, her entire being for her child and this shows her determination and profound understanding of the world. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s piece, “The Scarlet Letter” shows the other side of the sinner’s story and not as a villain, but a victim.
The Scarlet Letter starts off by throwing Hester Prynne into drama after being convicted for adultery in a Puritan area. Traveling from Europe to America causes complications in her travel which also then separates her from her husband, Roger Chillingworth for about three years. Due to the separation, Hester has an affair with an unknown lover resulting in having a child. Ironically, her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, is a Reverend belonging to their church who also is part of the superiors punishing the adulterer. No matter how many punishments are administered to Hester, her reactions are not changed. Through various punishments, Hester Prynne embraces her sin by embroidering a scarlet letter “A” onto her breast. However, she is also traumatized deep within from everything she’s been through. Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts this story of sin by using rhetorical devices such as allusion, alliteration and symbolism.
In the beginning of the book, Hawthorne paints the picture of a female named Hester who has sinned. Not only is she publicly ostracized for having an affair while unmarried, but her major repercussion, her daughter, receives her punishment as well because she derives directly from sin. It is through these tribulations that Hawthorne exemplifies Hester and Pearl, no matter how young, as strong, independent females. These characteristics were not easily applied to females during this time. Hawthorne’s ability to show Hester collected and under control to the crowd, although she may have felt otherwise inside, while she exits the prison and while she is on the scaffold, exhibits her as a strong woman. The fact that Hester exits the prison “by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will”, and the fact that while on the scaffold, under pressure, Hester refuses to give the name of the father of her child, also proves her strength and compassion. She states, “Never!....It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the cause of tragedy is centered upon the rigid Puritan society that leads to great consequences in the lives of sinners. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale's act of adultery greatly affects their lives and its result greatly alters their presence in the community. Hester handles her situation with as much dignity and pride as possible, confessing and bearing the punishments amiably. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, acts in a different and cowardly manner, as he is unable to confess his sin and accept society's and God's punishment. While Hester flourishes into a servant of God, Dimmesdale struggles to confess throughout the novel. Dimmesdale's inability to confess his sin and accept punishment eventually leads to his downfall.
Hester is being considered as the devil (Bellis 1), which is a sign that the town’s people are slanderous and judgmental. Their judgment has caused her to be isolated. “… A woman who had once been innocent…” is now considered as “…the reality of sin” (Hawthorne 39). They look at her as a threat diminishing their community’s chance for purification because “there was the taint of deepest sin…” (Hawthorne 24). My apprehension of Pearl is that she is the fruit of evil, because she is seen as “immortal” (Hawthorne 11). Because, she has caused a ruckus, her immoral acts have disturbed the nature of their society. They think this is morally correct because, “Political and generational ambivalence has its psychological counterpart…” (Bellis 2), which give them the right to make her an evil outcast.
In the book, Chillingworth is a physician who had been captured by Native Americans sometime ago and subsequently released by them into Boston, Massachusetts, who was strictly a Puritan settlement at the time. In the years of his imprisonment by the Indians, he was taught many native herbs and plants of the New World, and their uses on the human body. Through this, he entered Boston as a physician, known to have "gathered herbs, and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots, and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees, like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes." ( The Scarlet Letter , p. 120). Chillingworth had the knowledge of a particular drug, Atropine, which caused a sickness that closely resembled the condition of Dimmesdale. Chillingworth's motive for retribution to Dimmesdale for his adultery was very clear throughout the book, "There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine." (p. 80). Chillingworth's vengeful nature consumed his life and his only goal in life became the torment of Hester's adulterous husband, Dimmesdale. He was already showing signs of sickness, assumed by the reader to be attributed to his guilty conscience, and these were only amplified by the poisoning Chillingworth had inflicted upon him.
... pillar of morality and righteousness within her community, in strength and becomes a source of support to him in his weakest moments. Lastly, Hester’s transformation from sinner to a symbol of strength is realized after her return to Boston “Women, more especially, in the continually recurring trials of the wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring of sinful passion… came to Hester’s cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy!” (234) At last near the end of her life Hester Prynne, while never fully able to wash herself clean of her sin, has regained a place in her community as a counselor to other women due to of her ability to empathize with their situation and serve as an example of unwavering strength in the face of suffering and hardship.
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...
One of Hester’s greatest qualities is her unrelenting selflessness. Despite her constant mental anguish due to her sin, the constant stares and rude comments, and the
Nathaniel Hawthorne was not a Puritan. But Hawthrone’s forefathers were Puritans, so he had an understanding of their belief system and their basis behind it. He stated that he hoped the sins of his forefathers had been forgiven. Hoping to expose those ideas which he understood, yet despised, Hawthorne purposely presented many important Puritan beliefs as import aspects to the Scarlet Letter. In the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne addresses three main Puritan beliefs: providence, predestination, and the strict code of ethics that the settlers of New Englanders lived by.
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne analyzes Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. In the story, Hester is the main character of the story and was called Mistress Prynne (Hawthorne 70). Dimmesdale, in the story was referred to as Reverend Dimmesdale (Hawthorne 90). Chillingworth was originally named, Roger Prynne but later in the story he changed his name to Roger Chillingworth. In the story, Hester committed adultery with Dimmesdale against Chillingworth and in the beginning she got punished and sent to prison and later she got to get out of prison but with the exception of having to wear the letter A on her breast every time she went out in to town.
Throughout many years of her life, Hester was considered an outcast by the people of her town. These repercussions are felt by her daughter, Pearl, as well, because she has no friends. They don't associate with others and some instances occurred when Puritan children would throw rocks at the two. During this time, Hester refuses to make publicly known the name of her child's father. To bear the weight of her punishment all alone made her even stronger. As her life progressed, Hester became less of an outcast in the public eye. She was gifted at embroidery and was charitable to those less fortunate than she. (Although Hester was a talented seamstress, she did not make as much money as she could have because she was not allowed to sew wedding dresses. This is obviously because she had committed sins that were supposed to be confined to the sanctity of marriage.)
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, there are many moral and social themes develped throughout the novel. Each theme is very important to the overall effect of the novel. In essence, The Scarlet Letter is a story of sin, punishment and the importance of truth. One theme which plays a big role in The Scarlet Letter is that of sin and its effects. Throughout the novel there were many sins committed by various characters. The effects of these sins are different in each character and every character was punished in a unique way. Two characters were perfect examples of this theme in the novel. Hester Prynne and The Reverend Dimmesdale best demonstrated the theme of the effects of sin.