In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne critiques Puritan ideology. Hawthorne believes in some parts of Puritan doctrine because he thinks that the God is philanthropy. Everyone has opportunity to redeem from the sin. However, he criticizes for the harsh and brutal laws of puritanism. Fear makes Puritan push aside Hester. Puritan is afraid that if they do not punish this immoral behavior in the Puritanism society, their core of society which is moral ideology will collapse Hawthorne thinks that the traditional Puritan ideology ruins the natural humanity and human right. He believes the narrow attitude of Puritan makes them only see the sin for betrayal. Puritan ignore Hester’s kind, generous, and moral personality. He uses descriptive settings …show more content…
The A symbolizes same meaning of the rose. At the beginning of the story, Hawthorne describes that there is a rose-bush on the grave .He implies that Hester will not have an opportunity to live in a puritan society because she has passionate personality like the red which is not allowed in this severe society. When she is questioned by the minister, the A signify her amour because she never tells people who is the child’s father in order to protect her lover. After Hester is out of the prison, she has to feed her daughter. Thus, she lives on her embroidery skill. She embroiders marvelous and gold flower around the letter. The A represents her good art and able characteristic. To redeem from her guilt, she uses her money to aid those poor people. Although she is alone because Puritan does not forgive her, Hester does not evade the reality. She keeps a kind and admirable heart to survive in this merciless society. Even though the A is a shame of her in other people’s viewpoint, the A is what Hester is being. The red A is like the fire, giving her warmth and hope to overcome the oppressive and cool Puritanism society. Hester transform the meaning of A from adultery, alone, and agony to aid and angel with her virtue. That is the reason she comes back to the town and live with the A forever. It signifies that the humanistic spirit defeat the extreme power of traditional framework …show more content…
Although she uncontrollable, wild, and self-willed, she looks and feels the scarlet letter by herself not by other people’s thinking. Hester is a kind, and friendly. The A is an angel for her. She is the reason Hester lives bravely and strongly. ‘‘And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two’’ (Hawthorne 106). Her being encourages Hester and Dimmesdale to face the cruel society. The A becomes the sincerest and noblest symbol of love in her eyes. Hawthorne expresses those Puritan in the town prejudge Hester for her scarlet letter. Nevertheless, Pearl perceives that her mother is generous and beautiful. Hawthorne condemns Puritan’s fool through the description of link between Pearl, scarlet letter, and
With sin there is personal growth, and as a symbol of her sin, Hester’s scarlet “A” evokes development of her human character. The Puritan town of Boston became suspicious when Hester Prynne became pregnant despite her husband being gone. Being a heavily religious village, the townspeople punished Hester for her sin of adultery with the burden of wearing a scarlet “A” on all that she wears. Initially the...
The scarlet letter is more than just an “A” that Hester Prynne wears as punishment. The “A” on Hester’s clothing is a symbol for adultery, but under the hand stitched “A” it is much more. The “A” tells a story of how one mistake can make a big impact on life. Throughout the book there have been many scenarios that the “A” has affected different characters, in a positive and negative way. This little letter has many meanings to many people, some people that did not know it would even affect them. The simple letter is much more powerful than what anybody thought.
Pearl’s ever-changing moods and temperaments secure her as Hawthorne’s most prominent symbol in The Scarlet Letter. Pearl, the impish girlish creature, symbolizes many elements in Hawthorne’s book. Hester’s love for Pearl is never misplaced in the tale, but the reader gains a sense of contempt. Hester believes that without Pearl, she would not have survived the seven long years of exile from the Puritan society. Her daughter’s varying personality traits brings about a sense of joy and a change in her monotonous life.
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, includes a variety of symbolism, which plays a significant role in the book. The most significant symbol in The Scarlet Letter is Hester Prynne's daughter, Pearl, whom Hester bore as a result of her sin of adultery. Hester "named the infant "Pearl" as being of great price, -purchased with all she had, -her mother's only treasure!"(Hawthorne 75) As a consequence for Hester's sin, she is forced to wear the letter "A", for adultery, on her chest for the rest of her life. However, the scarlet letter is not the most severe consequence for her sin, Pearl gives Hester the most grief, "the scarlet letter in another form". (Hawthorne 84) Yet, if it were not for Pearl, Hester would not have been able to survive the pure agony of life itself. Pearl is like the wild red rose outside the prison door, giving Hester hope that everything would turn out positive. Pearl is not just a mere token of sin, her purpose is much greater- she symbolizes the love affair of Hester and Dimmesdale, Hester's passionate nature, she is a living daily punishment to Hester, and a living conscience for Dimmesdale. Yet, Pearl is the one who saves Hester from death and Dimmesdale from eternal sorrow. She forces Hester to live on and kisses Dimmesdale to show her filial love. She both guides them and teaches them the true lessons of life.
The Puritan society was extremely restricting. They had strict laws and rules, and harsh punishments for even the smallest of misdemeanors. They lived with only the bare necessities and discouraged uniqueness or boldness. As a Romantic writer, with beliefs the complete opposite of the Puritans, Nathaniel Hawthorne was very critical of the Puritan’s strict society. In the allegorical novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the characters of Hester Prynne, Reverend Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth order to convey the central moral of rejecting societal ideals and acting upon one 's own desires and emotions.
Nathaniel Hawthorne opens his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter, in the midst of the action. The novel begins with a crowd of Puritan Bostonians waiting anxiously outside the town jailhouse, hoping to see convicts, sinners, and their overall hated fellow citizens be publicly punished and shamed. This is a classic example in medias res, which translates from Latin to mean “in the middle of things,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica. The concept of introducing a plot while it is occurring and letting the reader infer about the past through context clues and flashbacks developed during the popular phase of epic poetry in ninth century B.C. as seen in Homer’s Odyssey, according to Murray. In medias res is a technique that helps create a more dramatic atmosphere and helps the author captivate the reader from the beginning. Hawthorne indirectly introduces the protagonist, Hester Prynne, in the second chapter when the crowd discusses and criticizes the punishment she has received for adultery. At this point, the reader can construe that Hester Prynne is a woman who fell to the temptation of sin, and in the Puritan society, she will have to face punishment. The reader eventually finds out greater detail of what leads her to be in the situation aforesaid. However, the few pieces of background information do not explain her past in full. This is where the reader’s imagination and logic must participate to describe in greater detail how her life has taken this certain path.
During the 17th century, Puritans believed scripture dictated every aspect of their lives. It appeared evident in the Puritan faith that their defiant actions and inner thoughts were to remain repressed. Puritans felt the urge to resist their impulses because by law, each desire they had, exemplified a tug from the devil. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathanial Hawthorne takes his character, Hester Prynne, who commits acts of infidelity, and turns her against the Puritan community. Although the scarlet “A” objectifies Hester’s humanity and exposes strict Puritan society, it also liberates her as a result of her ultimate transformation.
In the novel, Hawthorne criticizes the “Puritan allegorization of experience” that considers all sins to be equal, and denies the sufficient evaluation of the specifics of moral behavior. In addition, the notion of knowledge is socialized through this method, as evidenced by the “A” in Scarlet, which is the principal illustration of Puritan signification, and seemingly allegorizes Hester‘s being. Hawthorne significantly incorporates the interpretations of the “A” in the novel, which unsettles the allegorical vehicle as well as meaning rather than degenerates into meaningless perspectivism. This undermines the Puritan autocracy‘s symbolic equation of “A” with adultery, therefore, humanizing and de-allegorizing Hester‘s being as well as moral complexity. Throughout the novel, the meaning of “A” continually become clear with the representation of several positive senses helping the reader to understand characters, especially Hester (Imene
Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlett Letter is an American Classic and has proved to be a great contribution to American Literature. Hawthorne has allowed his readers insight into a Puritan past that held strict principles and unyielding consequences that he was all too familiar with and haunted by these horror stories of his heritage led by his own ancestors. In composing this tale Hawthorne presents a realistic image of the 16th Century and threads the importance of his knowledge of the Transcendentalist movement which brought focus to the nature of life and the right of individuals to pursue their natural desire a great contrast to the Puritanic existence he was so custom to. Although the author Nathaniel Hawthorne had doubts about the seriousness of his work, his novel The Scarlet Letter, published in 1850, gained huge recognition and notoriety because of its insight into a changing American culture and the issues that would shift its' direction. Hawthorne was born in 1804 on July fourth in Salem Massachusetts. Hawthorne’s heritage went back six generations in Salem where he was raised and reared for manhood. His own ancestors had been there to judge in the Salem Witch Trial of the seventeenth century. This undoubtedly was one of the many things that shaped and influenced this American author’s style in this and many of his other works.
Therefore, in The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne criticizes Puritan theology as rigid and inflexible. He suggests that when religion is built upon legalism and chastisement without compassion, it becomes a prison of guilt that sucks the life out of believers instead of being a means to help restore sinners. Hawthorne uses The Scarlet Letter as an allegory that shows that the Puritan's lack of compassion is a sin that far surpasses the sins of passion.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel that shows the Puritanical way of life. Society does not accept the fact that Hester has committed the sin of adultery so they cast her out by making her wear a scarlet letter 'A' across her chest. Pearl is the product of Hester's sin, the scarlet letter is the product of society. This idea shows that Pearl is the scarlet letter and the scarlet letter is Pearl. There are many ways in which Pearl is shown to be as the scarlet letter because she is considered to be a part of nature, she is the physical connection between Dimmesdale and Hester, and Pearl is the reason that makes Dimmesdale and Hester to finally accept their sin and make their confession in front of society and the people within society. The reasons are listed in this manner because in the first one nature is a stronger force that human force, then comes her connection between Dimmesdale and Hester because she is the natural connection which is a link from the first one to the second and also her being the reason Dimmesdale and Hester accepting the sin is last because there is a stronger connection between the child and the parents here which is linked from the previous reason.
As the 18th century philosopher William Hazlitt once said, “the only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy”. Perhaps Nathaniel Hawthorne shared this same principle when he wrote his classic novel The Scarlet Letter, as it contains many acts of dishonesty, hypocrisy, and deceit. His book tells the tale of Hester Prynne, a young woman charged with adultery, and her struggle in dealing with the judgment of the Puritan society she lives in. The Puritans take their religion very seriously, and condemn anyone for even the slightest sin. This leads to a culture of intolerance and judgment, which contrasts with Hawthorne’s strongly Transcendental views. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses irony
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, had a large influence of a very popular religion during the 17th century, known as Puritanism. The Oxford Encyclopedia defines Puritanism as “religious sensibility centered around conservation” (?). The reason behind many people traveling to America during the 1600s from England was only for one specific reason: religious freedom (Joselit). “For leaving England for what would become New England, the Puritans were not seeking economic opportunity and security for themselves and their families. They were on a religious mission or, what later became known in Puritan circle as an “errand into the wilderness””(Joselit, 21). The first set of Puritans came to America in 1620, and started a colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts. By the 1640s, there were over twenty-five thousand English settlers in New England. The group of Puritans that settled in the 1630s lived in an area that they named the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which is present day Boston. This is where the setting of The Scarlet Letter takes place (Joselit).
As the puritans began to see Hester as a caring woman, and as someone who was concerned for the betterment of her community, the letter “A” no longer stood for adultery. "The scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world 's scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence, too” (Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter). This shows that with all the good deeds that Hester has done, the puritan community didn’t belittle or scorn Hester Prynne anymore. The puritan community “refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification” (Baym and Levine, pg.539). The letter became a symbol of her calling. Hester “brings food to the doors of the poor, she nurses the sick, and she is a source of aid in times of trouble” (The Scarlet Letter). This led the puritans to believe that the letter “A” stood for able. She was an able woman. She was no longer looked down upon or negatively talked about. Hester was respected by her community for the sensitive and nurturing woman she was. “Eventually, the letter even achieved a kind of holiness” (Shmoop Editorial Team). She was even a Sister of Mercy. The scarlet letter had “the effect of the cross on a nun 's bosom. It imparted to the wearer a kind of sacredness, which enabled her to walk securely amid all peril. Had she fallen among thieves, it would have kept her
The Scarlet Letter is a fictional novel that begins with an introductory passage titled ‘The Custom-House’. This passage gives a historical background of the novel and conveys the narrator’s purpose for writing about the legend of Hester Prynne even though the narrator envisions his ancestors criticizing him and calling him a “degenerate” because his career was not “glorifying God”, which is very typical of the strict, moralistic Puritans. Also, although Hawthorne is a Romantic writer, he incorporates properties of Realism into his novel by not idealizing the characters and by representing them in a more authentic manner. He does this by using very formal dialogue common to the harsh Puritan society of the seventeenth century and reflecting their ideals through this dialogue. The Puritans held somewhat similar views as the Transcendentalists in that they believed in the unity of God and the world and saw signs and symbols in human events, such as when the citizens related the meteo...