Every person has felt melancholy and dejected at one point in their lives as sorrow does not discriminate on race, age, nor gender. Even in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne, the protagonist, faces desolation in her life, which elicits an emotional response in myself where I am able to relate to the despondency she faces. As the pressures of her Puritan society affect Hester, Hawthorne observes that she goes through a “sad transformation...her rich and luxuriant hair had either been cut off, or was so completely hidden by a cap, that not a shining lock of it ever once gushed into the sunshine. It was due in part to all these causes, but still more to something else, that there seemed to be no longer anything in Hester’s face” (Hawthorne 327). The passage is about the emotional changes Hester faces as the pressures of her Puritan society condemns her to the extremes because she violated the strict laws of her highly religious community. The emotional change Hester experiences is desolation and hopelessness as symbolized by the saying that there is no more shining of her hair in the sunlight, portraying Hester as stark, gloomy, and miserable-- the complete opposite of the beautiful aura she once portrayed as a “young woman...tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale [with] dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which, besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness …show more content…
The reasons for our emotional changes parallel each other in that we were affected by the stress and pressures shoved at us from a society with increasingly high expectations and not being able to be good enough to meet or even exceed such tunnel-visioned expectations of
A human being is subject to feelings that range from happiness to depression to indifferent. Whenever an author captures even some of the emotions that a person goes through, the author has made the characters realistic. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson are two perfect examples of authors who master the art of capturing feelings within the characters. Both books display instances where the characters are subject to the feelings of deceit, despair, and dejection; therefore, the characters seem as though they were alive and breathing.
The central theme in The Scarlet Letter is that manifested sin will ostracize one from society and un-confessed sin will lead to the destruction of the inner spirit. Hawthorne uses the symbol of the scarlet letter to bring out this idea. In the novel, Hester is forced to wear the scarlet letter A (the symbol of her sin) because she committed adultery with the clergyman, Dimmesdale. Because the public's knowledge of her sin, Hester is excluded physically, mentally, and socially from the normal society of the Puritan settlement. She lives on the outskirts of town in a small cottage where she makes her living as a seamstress. Though she is known to be a great sewer amongst the people, Hester is still not able to sew certain items, such as a new bride's veil. Hester also has no interaction with others; instead she is taunted, if not completely ignored, by all that pass her by. Despite the ill treatment of the society, Hester's soul is not corrupted. Instead, she flourishes and improves herself in spite of the burden of wearing the scarlet letter and she repeatedly defies the conventional Puritan thoughts and values by showing what appears to us as strength of character. Her good works, such as helping the less fortunate, strengthen her inner spirit, and eventually partially welcome her back to the society that once shunned her.
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
The characterization of Hester Prynne demonstrates a contrast to pure society, as writer and critic D.H. Lawrence suggests in his article, “On the Scarlet Letter.” There is a genuine disparity in the methods Lawrence uses to portray Prynne, and the methods used by The Scarlet Letter’s author, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Because of his utilization of impactful syntax, religious allusion, and critical tone, D.H. Lawrence’s claim that Hester Prynne is a contradictory character to pure society is effectively justified when compared to the misleading seductive elements of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s writing.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter has a very wide cast of characters, but settles upon three distinct main ones. These three characters are all very different, but still suffer from the same internal conflict regarding their relationships with one another. One theme can be associated with each individual character, but a single trait is common among all three. Love, fear, and revenge are all primary themes present in The Scarlet Letter, but no other emotion is as prevalent to the characters’ developments than their guilt. These themes give us a sense of how different, but also how similar, these characters are.
Chapter 5 of the book, “Hester at Her Needle” gives Hester’s account on her days after she is released from prison. It is a very sunny day which is usually supposed to represent a happy setting with a bright future ahead. However Hester automatically thinks that the sunlight is specifically there to reveal the scarlet letter that is sewn onto the chest of her dress. The steps that she takes out of the prison represent the steps that she will take to her new life that is full of loneliness and scorn. Her future is very grim-being cut off from the townspeople as well as from a normal life. Hawthorne goes on to describe here that “To-morrow would bring its own trial with it; so would the next day, and so would the next; each its own trial, and yet the very same that was now so unutterably grievous to be born...
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...
Within the next seven years, Hester has gone through a change both physically and emotionally. The book describes the scarlet letter to have absorbed all the rebellious and fiery qualities of Hester, leaving a cold and lonely woman, her tenderness "crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more." At the same time, Hester started "hiding" her beautiful rich hair in a cap, therefore practically eliminating her beauty and femininity. As Hester becomes less passionate internally, she becomes less passionate externally as well.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s well known novel, The Scarlet Letter, extensive diction and intense imagery are used to portray the overall tone of the characters. In particular, Hester Prynne, the wearer of the Scarlet Letter, receives plentiful positive characterization throughout the novel. Hester’s character most notably develops through the town’s peoples ever-changing views on the scarlet letter, the copious mentions of her bravery, and her ability to take care of herself, Pearl, and others, even when she reaches the point where most would give up and wallow in their suffering.
In Chapter 13, “Another View of Hester,” Hawthorne opens a window through which we glimpse Hester’s internal conflict. She has long been contemplating the “dark question” (144.25) of whether or not “existence [is] worth accepting” (144.26), and she has concluded that it is not. The image of our heroine here is troubling as it seems she has lost all semblance of hope in the possibility of triumph over the scorn and humiliation the public has inflicted on her. Her depression is so strong that she wonders if would be better “to send Pearl at once to Heaven” (145.14). Furthermore, she has not only lost hope for her own life and optimism for her daughter’s future, but she has also lost faith in society in general, especially regarding the place of women. She feels the whole system is beyond repair and that the only way to mend the cracks in the foundation is to have the entire structure “torn down and built anew” (144.32-33). Only after such a drastic reordering takes place can women take a more fair position in the world. This middle portion of Hester’s story represents a definitive low-point; her misery here certainly rivals and likely surpasses that which she felt while standing in front her peers on the scaffold in the beginning
In this excerpt Hawthorne is conveying a change in Hester’s physical appearance to now being austere and bland. Hawthorne’s description of the changed Hester is in close comparison to the description of the Puritans. After seven years of being punished and looked down upon, Hester Prynne -once described as a halo- is now fitting in with the sorrowful, bland colored, hair in a cap, rotund Puritan woman.
As Hester wears the scarlet letter, the reader can feel how much of an outcast Hester becomes. When walking through town, “…she never raised her head to receive their greeting. If they were resolute to accost her, she laid her finger on the scarlet letter and passed on” (Hawthorne, 127).She believes that she is not worthy of the towns acknowledgments and chooses to ignore them. The guilt that now rests in Hester is overwhelming to her and is a reason of her change in personality.
Hawthorne consistently places Hester in shade to portray her as sinful and hiding the truth. In the beginning of the novel, Hester spends days in prison with Pearl. When Hester and Pearl are finally released, Hester is described as "a black shadow emerging into the sunshine"(49). Within the sunshine is a sinless group of plebeians awaiting the emergence of Hester. In another important scene, Pearl and Hester visit Governor Bellingham's mansion. Bellingham greets Hester with four men at his side. One of the men is Hester's "partner in crime," Arthur Dimmesdale. As soon as he enters the room, a shadow from the window curtain is cast upon Hester. Both Hester and Dimmesdale are trying to conceal Dimmesdale's sin just as the shadow is concealing Hester. Even in Hester's own secluded cabin, she is not welcome into light. In chapter 13, Hester can only be contained in her "darkened house"(148). When sunshine is present, she is not and her shadow fades "across the threshold"(148). Hawthorne continues to impound the idea of Hester's concealment in a scene taken place in the forest. As Hester and Pearl walk through the forest to meet Dimmesdale, sunshine is erased with each step Hester takes. Even Pearl notices this and says, ."..The sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself..."(168). Hawthorne cannot get any more apparent with his symbolism of dark involving Hester.
Nathanial Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, provoked many emotions throughout his entire novel. The emotions ranged from grief to anticipation. Each character played an important role in the novel and I believe that each character evoked a different emotion in the reader. Three of the characters in which Nathanial Hawthorne demonstrates this are Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and their daughter Pearl.
Throughout all the sinful things Hester Prynne has done, she still managed to obtain good qualities. Hester was an adulterer from the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hester was looked down upon by the citizens of Boston because of the sin she and another person committed, but no one knew who her partner in crime was because she refused to release his name. Towards the very end of the story Hester’s accomplice confessed and left Hester and Pearl feeling joyous, because now they didn’t have to keep in a secret. Hester is a trustworthy, helpful, and brave woman throughout The Scarlet Letter.