In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the guilt bestowed upon two passionate lovers committing adultery reveals the corrupt and over-radical beliefs of a strict Puritanical society. Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale face life-changing consequences after submitting to their emotions and committing sin. The narrator’s forgiving tone presents the society as being very strict in living by their social and religious codes. The administrative, or authoritarian, imagery conjured up by various scenarios with the scaffold, magistrates, and the mayor in hid castle supports the tense mood as Hester and Dimmesdale try to mysteriously elude the laws of their community. Hawthorne employs allegory to the names of many characters in the novel to suggest their vulnerable personalities as they, in many cases, become shaped by the Puritanical views. Most importantly, the abundance of symbolism, such as the scarlet letter “A” itself, hammers home the effects of the Puritanical moral values on the characters in the novel. Puritans originated as a main protestant group separating themselves from the English church in the 16th century. Their radical mores distinguished them as a very draconian yet almost utopian group as they aimed to live very uniformly by their core values. Today the term “puritan” may be used to describe someone who has very disciplinary perspectives on sexual morality. This stems from the historical Puritans’ lack of tolerance for sexual activity outside of the marital requirements. Living by such oppressive laws, the punishments for lawbreakers equaled the harshness, revealed in the novel with frequent authoritarian imagery. In Puritanical society, bestowing shame and guilt may be regarded as the best forms of penalty. In... ... middle of paper ... ...nding the letter “A” onto his chest to lift the hardship slightly off of Hester. Emotionally, he goes from wanting to conceal his sins to revealing to this whole community about his flaws as to lift the burden and confess his sins in a dying effort to, in a sense, apologize to God. Guilt defines the relationships and personalities of the characters in The Scarlet Letter. The protagonists shape their lives around their immense feelings of guilt and shame or their aim to bestow blame upon others. The Puritan society in which Hester and Dimmesdale live tries to create ideal laws and moral values to control its inhabitants. However the punishments the magistrates employ in rejecting the pair from the community forces them to deny those very mores. The novel clearly demonstrates the flaws of such radical societies as they oppress the greatness of the human condition.
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 the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hawthorne portrays a society filled with betrayel, secrecie, and sinners. The people of society do not show their true colors and hide their true intentions. Dimmsdale, Chillingsworth and Hester all have fallen to sin, however they all believe they are not the worse sinner and try to seek justice for themselves.
The Scarlet Letter is a novel revolving around a woman who committed the sin of adultery in a small Puritan town in seventeenth-century Boston. Hester Prynne, the adulteress, refuses to reveal her lover’s name, and as a result is forced to wear a large, red "A" on her bosom. This is to tell everyone of her sin. Hester is also forced to live isolated with her daughter, Pearl, who is the result of her sin. Meanwhile, the small Puritan town remains very devoted to and very proud of their young minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. What they do not know is that it is Dimmesdale who is Hester’s Lover and Pearl’s father. The fact that Dimmesdale keeps his sin a secret is tearing him up, both physically and emotionally. To complicate matters even more, Hester’s old and slightly deformed husband is back. He had stayed in England for quite a while allowing Hester to settle into their new home.
Throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester’s experiences in and out of the Puritan society and the weight of the scarlet letter change her in many ways, including her level of confidence, her appearance and her outlook on the Puritan people, and the way she feels about the letter “A”. Due to the sin committed by Hester she became the outcast of the Puritan community. She was forced to begin a new life on her own with no support from anyone. The sudden vicissitudes in her life cause a great transformation in Hester.
... she was worthy of redemption, but after seeing a fellow sinner receive redemption, she saw that God is indeed merciful. Hester wrestled with her sin, and to finally conquer her sin, she came back to the place that it had occurred. Hester wanted the peace and grace of forgiveness, and with the help of the scarlet letter, began dealing with her sin. Secret sin plays a key role in our lives, and although most of us don’t have physical symbols of this secret sin, it is embedded in our soul. Secret sin tears apart the human soul and psyche, and only after it is dealt with, can we move on to find peace or happiness. We need to make sure that the things that we do wrong, we don’t hide. We have to deal with these sins, and turn them into stepping stones, so as to grow and become a better person. Hiding them leads to destruction, but growing from our faults has no limits.
Have you ever committed a sin so appalling that you couldn’t tell a single soul, which, in result, gnawed away at the very foundation of passion and ecstasy in your life? The truth is every individual sins at some point. Certain people more than others and some people worse than others. What matters most is how you respond and how you let the emotional wrath of repentance take ahold of your life. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth to symbolize the effects of guilt and how destructive or reinforcing a life full of remorse can be.
For ages, humans have been condemned for their misdemeanors and insubordination towards society's strict justice system; though, at a first glance, this suggests a degrading society, the classification and branding of a person who has committed a sin is what characterizes humans as human beings. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, which sets during the early colonization of America, The Scarlet Letter bears a tale of a married woman, named Hester Prynne, who commits adultery with the Minister of Boston, Massachusetts, Arthur Dimmesdale, where they both share their perceptive daughter, Pearl. Though Hester's husband, who is originally a resident of Europe, discovers this shameful truth about his wife, Roger Chillingworth embarks on a journey of vengeance to ascertain the name of the man who has eluded his punishment for adultery. On the other hand, Hester Prynne is branded with the scarlet letter, serving as to shower shame onto Hester while incarcerating her into public humility. Although many individuals are incapable of attaining true redemption, the scarlet letter, whose primary purpose was to bring shame to Hester, failed to carry out its office. As a result, the letter configured itself to Hester and the society in which she resided in, all while acquiring a multitude of meanings as Hester, and other characters, begin to understand the meaning and themselves even further.
Hester, the unlikely protagonist of this narrative, constantly battles with what her condemning “A” means to her. Although she makes and embroiders the letter herself, this scarlet “A” becomes its own individual persona. Through Hester’s sin, she and the “A” are bonded as she openly and publicly claims the
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a highly acclaimed work which centerpiece is the focus on the effects of sin in Puritan society. Hawthorne carried a heavy burden of truth hidden within the Puritan code, which has in turn created frenzy for his book since its publication in 1850. The age-old tale is of Hester Prynne a married woman in Boston, who is charged with adultery with an unknown partner. As punishment Hester must adorn a Scarlet A symbolizing her sin and shaping her existence. When one vigorously analyzes the overall theme of the novel, sin and its corollaries appear to be the main premise for the storyline. There exist little in The Scarlet Letter that cannot be traced back to the dark, debilitating, and destitute repercussions correlating with fleshly sin. Moreover, the effect of sin in The Scarlet Letter materializes through the evolution and individualization of Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the prolific use of the embroidered “A” on the chest of Hester’s wardrobe contributes many perceptions of the infamous symbol’s meaning. Hester, one of the novel’s most pertinent characters, receives punishment for her adulterous sin via the “A”, as she must wear it upon her bosom for the remainder of her life; also, Hester manipulates her punishment into a learning experience that establishes a firm, knowledgeable environment in which she can raise her child. The flaming red “A” symbolizes the many varying repercussions that sin, especially one of this magnitude, carries.
Without an honorable reputation a person is not worthy of respect from others in their society. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, the struggle to shake off the past is an underlying theme throughout the novel. Characters in this novel go through their lives struggling with trying to cope with the guilt and shame associated with actions that lost them their honorable reputation. Particularly, Hawthorne shows the lasting effect that sin and guilt has on two of the main characters in the book: Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “ The Scarlet Letter’’ is a classical story about sin, punishment and revenge. It all began with a young woman named Hester Prynne who has committed adultery, and gave birth to a child in a Puritan society. Through the eyes of the puritans Hester has gone against their religious ways. Hester must now wear the symbol of the letter “A” on her clothing for the rest of her life as act of shame. Hester Prynne faces a long journey ahead and her strength enables her to continue on.
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...
In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, the author, Nathaniel Hawthorn makes a commentary on the hypocrisy in the Puritan life style through his portrayal of his characters Arthur Dimmesdale, the town’s adored Puritan priest, and Hester Prynne, the ostracized sinner. Throughout the novel, Nathaniel Hawthorn depicts traits that contradict the Puritan’s ideas of how a defiled sinner and a proper Puritan priest should behave by the social conventions of their time. The author does this by illustrating Dimmesdale, who is supposed to be a righteous and holy person, as a sinful and cowardly man. Dimmesdale is also show to be a naive individual who is oblivious to the ever present danger that surrounds him. He is a complete contradiction to commonly held image of the honorable and holy priest. And the character who is portrayed as a righteous and selfless helper is the adulteress Hester Prynne, the woman whom the Puritan people detest for her sin. Hester is also shown to be a confident and strong character, a
The Scarlet Letter is a blend of realism, symbolism, and allegory. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses historical settings for this fictional novel and even gives historical background information for the inspiration of the story of Hester Prynne in the introduction of The Scarlet Letter, ‘The Custom-House’. The psychological exploration of the characters and the author’s use of realistic dialogue only add to the realism of the novel. The most obvious symbol of the novel is the actual scarlet letter ‘A’ that Hester wears on her chest every day, but Hawthorne also uses Hester’s daughter Pearl and their surroundings as symbols as well. Allegory is present as well in The Scarlet Letter and is created through the character types of several characters in the novel.