The Scarlet Letter
Is the exposed sin of one worse than the hidden sin of another? In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Hester Prynne is forced by the small puritan community in the 1600’s to wear a scarlet letter A, standing for adulterous. Her husband had sent her to the New World before him, because he had to settle affairs. When he finally arrives two years later Hester has a newborn daughter named Pearl, who cannot be his child. Her husband under the pseudo name Roger Chillingworth vows to find Hester’s lover, who the readers later find out to be Arthur Dimmesdale, the town religious leader. When analyzing the novel one finds a vast difference between exposed sin, and hidden sin.
Hester Prynne’s exposed sin is her adultery. She is punished not by death or jail time but by public humiliation. Hester was ordered by the town authority to wear “the ignominious letter on her breast…” (Hawthorne 52). The “ignominious”, or shameful letter A is her punishment for having unmarried sex in the community. To Hester the scarlet letter acts like a force field, keeping people at bay and isolating Hester from the town. “From the intense consciousness of being the object of severe and universal observation, the wearer of the scarlet letter.” (Hawthorne 56). This quote exemplifies the loneliness Hester feels. Her exposed sin has made her the poster child for unrighteousness. No one wants to be associated with her, when she walks down the street people move out of the way, even priests, and children avoid her path. The only way for Hester to be assimilated back into society is to work at it and be patient. Seven years after she is given the scarlet letter the hatred of her is greatly diminished. Due to Hester’s impressive ne...
... middle of paper ...
... dimmsdale. He finally admits his sin and is now at peace. He soon dies afterwards, the strain of keeping his sin hidden proved too much for him.
In conclusion one finds that the exposed sin of Hester caused extreme social isolation, where only time and effort can get her assimilated back into society. The hidden sin in Roger Chillingworth’s life caused him to go mad, and become satanic. Arthur Dimmesdale’s hidden sin ended up killing him. When analyzing the novel one finds a vast difference between exposed sin, and hidden sin. This difference is evident in the fate of these three characters. Hester, the only one with exposed sin, did not get harmed physically, and was just ostracized by society. Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale both had hidden sin, of these two men one ended up dead, and the other went mad. Therefore...
Works Cited
Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred” (Hawthorne). As this sentence is read in the The Scarlet Letter, the reader will realize that the main theme of the book is the sentence above. Throughout the book, secret sin damages the lives, soul, and the integrity of the main characters. However, it could have easily been evaded through open confession of their sins. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s purpose in writing this novel is an attempt to influence the reader to openly confess their sins and never be ashamed of who they are. According to Levine, “even though we convey ourselves as saints, we are really sinners (Levine 64). The Scarlet Letter is a classic work of Hawthorne due to the themes it portrays and the relevancy to today’s society. By definition, “A classic is a work of art so universal that it has transcended the boundaries of time and place; it has survived the ‘test of time’” (Lazarus). In the highly symbolic novel, “The Scarlet Letter”, Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the effects of hidden sin and his characters’ ultimate release from guilt when they learn to own their sin.
Unknowingly, Hester Prynne sailed from Europe to the Americas betrayed and tricked. Waiting for the arrival of her husband, Roger Chillingworth, she lost hope in him ever arriving or even still being alive. After enduring two years of tortured loneliness and lost love, Hester wished to feel the warmth of love again. She tried to fill this emptiness by making love with the Reverend Dimmesdale. When her child Pearl was born, Hester's adulterous sin was discovered and she was cast out from their society and required to wear an embroidered “A” on her bosom in punishment. Hester felt guilt for her sin the rest of her life and sought repentance and absolution until the time she died. Hester never had true love for Chillingworth, but was tricked into marriage. She later told him this while speaking in her jail cell saying to him, “... thou knowest that I was frank with thee, I felt no love, nor feigned any” (Hawthorne, page #). Hester was betrayed, tricked and allowed herself to become caught up in the evil desires of another. She then allowed herself to be trapped by sin, cau...
Hester Prynne had been tainted with sin once she had committed the crimme of adultry. Mistress Prynne has "raised a great scandal" in the town of Boston.(chapter 3) Hester left to the new world before her husband had. Her husband has not returneed in the past two years, and she had a daughter of three months. Meaning Hester has sinned by cheating on her husband and having anothers man's child. This goes against the Puritians ways of being holy which means Hester is not only a sinner but a criminal as well. Prynned had commited one of the seven deadly sins which is lust. She is put onto a platform so society may look down at her for commiting a sin. However Hester doesnt view herself as the worst sinner in the town of Boston but, views Chillingsworth as the worst sinner of all. In chapter 15 Hester states how Chillingsworth has "done me worse wrong than I have done him." Hester believes all of her memories with Chillingsworth have been her ugliest remembrances. She views him as a monster for marrying her and thinking that they could be happy since she was young and he was a old scholar. hester no longer see's her old husband but a deformed monster in his place. She disregards any happy memories she ever had with and believes he has deeply wronged her which makes him the biggest sinner of all for ruinnig Hesters life. Hester tries to seek justice by escaping to the o...
Hester Prynne, an adulteress, is imprisoned by the laws of Puritan society and instead of running away, struggles to accept her badge of shame as a very real part of who she is. When she is first commanded to wear a scarlet letter A, she sees it as a curse. For the first few years she tries to ignore the ignominy under a mask of indifference. “Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air or weary indifference,” Hawthorne writes. (page 48) Even so, she cannot hide from what her sin has produced. Every day her daughter Pearl reminds her of her sin. The only way to freedom is to avoid being defined by the society in which she finds herself. It is a gradual process but slowly, due to her compassion for the poor and sick, people start to view Hester's badge as meaning “Able” rather than “Adulteress”. Eventually her badge becomes a blessing as other women come to her for advice and counseling in that,
Everyone has secret sins that we don’t want anyone else to find out about. Yet, when these secret sins are revealed, we discover that these sins were holding us back. Hester Pyrnne returns to her home in the last chapter of The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and willingly puts the scarlet letter back on. This letter bears the pain and guilt of her secret sin, adultery, and the town that she lived in thought that the letter would make her deal with, and be redeemed from her sin. Through her trails, we can learn about ourselves, and how to deal with the secret sins inside each of us. Hester Prynne saw the Reverend Dimmesdale’s embrace of his sin on the pillory led to his salvation. Even though she preached that she was unable to be saved, she was drawn back to the place of her sin so as to let the scarlet letter do its job and save her. Secret sin is something that we want to hide, but only after we deal with it in the place that it occurred, can we move on.
...ous sin, the wearer of the scarlet letter learns from her mistake and allows her new wisdom to transform her life and to help others escape from the same evil that cut a hole in her soul. Unfortunately Arthur Dimmsedale, for he too has committed the same offence, is not strong enough to fight back against the malicious ignominy, which destroys his spiritual being. Dimmesdale permits his despair to drag him into a life so full of darkness, that it would take a miracle for him to see the light again. As for Chillingworth, he can only hope that his actions can be forgiven by those whose lives he has interfered with. All in all, every person must accept the fact that at one point or another, sin will come knocking on the front door. It is the choice of each individual either to permit that ignominy to teach and transform his life, or to allow it to destroy them.
thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any"
The Reverend Dimmesdale was another character that demonstrated the effects of sin. He committed the same offense that Hester committed, adultery. The difference between Dimmesdale and Hester was that Dimmesdale was not publicly punished for his crime while Hester was. Because of this, Dimmesdale felt extremely guilty. This feeling of guilt was so atrocious that it mentally and physically withered Dimmesdale, as he felt a very strong need to repent and cleanse his soul.
In choosing to contain his deep sin as a secret, Mr. Dimmesdale suffered from a festering guilt that plagued him until his death. After Hester was sentenced with the punishment for her act of adultery, Mr. Dimmesdale remained silent in refusal to confess to his inclusion in the sin. Over time, feelings of remorse gnawed at Mr. Dimmesdale’s conscience and left him in a self loathing state for his own hypocrisy. Dimmesdale felt excessive guilt in allowing Hester to undergo the entirety of the ridicule and punishment alone while he maintained a positioned of respected and idolized authority, yet could not find it in his heart to expose the sin. Looking upon his situation with the Puritan perspective, Mr. Dimmesdale “…loved the truth and loathed the lie, as few men ever did. Therefore above all things else, he loathed his miserable self” (136). Mr. Dimmesdale felt he was living a lie for he, the very man who preached to the community about living a pure life, was living one tainted with...
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.
Guilt and shame haunt all three of the main characters in The Scarlet Letter, but how they each handle their sin will change their lives forever. Hester Prynne’s guilt is publicly exploited. She has to live with her shame for the rest of her life by wearing a scarlet letter on the breast of her gown. Arthur Dimmesdale, on the other hand, is just as guilty of adultery as Hester, but he allows his guilt to remain a secret. Instead of telling the people of his vile sin, the Reverend allows it to eat away at his rotting soul. The shame of what he has done slowly kills him. The last sinner in this guilty trio is Rodger Chillingworth. This evil man not only hides his true identity as Hester’s husband, but also mentally torments Arthur Dimmesdale. The vile physician offers his ‘help’ to the sickly Reverend, but he gives the exact opposite. Chillingworth inflicts daily, mental tortures upon Arthur Dimmesdale for seven long years, and he enjoys it. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth are all connected by their sins and shame, but what they do in regards to those sins is what sets them apart from each other.
In The Scarlet Letter guilt, punishment, revenge, and sin are all very prominent. They show us just what can happen when you choose to carry unconfessed sin and guilt. Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale all experience these terrible consequences. In this novel you will see the consequences of sin while having to under go the feeling of guilt.
When a secret is hidden inside it can engulf and even destroy a person. Arthur Dimmesdale, a revered young minister in the town, demonstrates what happens to the soul. Dimmesdale, as it is later made known, commits the serious crime of adultery with a young married woman named Hester Prynne living in the Plymouth Colony. Hester is unwilling to reveal her partner in sin. Dimmesdale’s fear of persecution and humiliation forces him to keep his sin a secret. So he watches as Hester is placed before her peers on a platform in front of the whole town and is then called to speak to her and urge that she reveal her fellow adulterer. In essence, he is called upon to commit yet another sin, that of hypocrisy. Dimmesdale’s accumulated sins build inside of him, constantly afflicting his soul until it begins to affect him physically. Thinking himself a hypocrite, he tries to ease his conscience and requite his sin by scourging himself on the chest during the night, fasting for days on end and even climbing the same platform on which Hester began her humiliation.
In a town full of Puritan believers, three sinners arose: Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth (Prynne). The three all defied the Puritan God, and lived to face their consequences. Hester and Dimmesdale’s sins were closely tied, but Chillingworth 's was of a vastly different nature. Hester 's sin was adultery, as she had cheated on her husband Chillingworth. Likewise, Dimmesdale 's sin was sexual immorality. He knowingly had relations with Hester, a married woman. Generally, their sins are more tame in nature, as it was a consensual relationship, and did no harm. Dimmesdale also sinned against his God. He hid and lied by omission while publicly preaching about the dangers of lying. His sin of hypocrisy did no harm to others, but created distrust in his
The Scarlet Letter is a novel that deals with the theme of sin. Throughout history, people have committed all types of sins, and whether they are major or minor, people have been punished. However, the severity of a punishment is very difficult to agree on. Some people feel that sinners should be deeply punished no matter how little the wrongdoing was. Others feel that a person's punishment should be based upon the severity of their crime. However, what many people overlook is the fact that in time, we all have committed sins.