Summary of The Scarlet Letter chapter one The first chapter sets the scene for the novel: Boston, during the seventeenth century. During this period, religion is the foundation for both the laws and the society. We are introduced to the town's cemetery and nearby prison. Next to the prison grows a wild rosebush. We can think of the wild rosebush as representing the beauty of nature, and the prison as the symbol of societies need to tame nature. chapter two The Puritans are awaiting the public punishment of Hester Pyrne. At this point the reader has yet to discover any information regarding Hester's crime. Some of the women in the crowd feel that her punishment is too lenient. It seems that the community’s minister, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, was able to help her escape the punishment of death that the community’s laws called for. Hester, looking beautiful and dignified, emerges from the prison carrying a three month-old child and wearing a scarlet letter A on her chest. The letter is beautifully embroidered, and displays vibrant gold thread. Hester is led to the scaffold. Standing there in front of the crowd as they taunt her, she reminisces about her past. Hester is filled with pain and feelings of loneliness. chapter three Still on the scaffold, Hester notices a strange man and an Indian heading towards the crowd. The strange man looks at her and they both recognize one another. She is shocked to realize that this is her long-missing husband. He motions to her as to not reveal his identity. Another man in the crowd informs the stranger as to the circumstances leading to the woman’s punishment. He tells him that Hester was sent to Europe ahead of her husband, who was to follow a short time later. She has now been in Boston for two years, and has never received word from her husband. The people have been lenient in punishing her for the crime of having a child out of wedlock because of the circumstances with her absent husband. Her punishment is to stand on the scaffold for three hours and to wear the A on her chest for the rest of her life. The stranger remarks as to how he has had numerous problems at sea, and had afterwards been held captive by some Indians. He thinks it is wrong that the father of the child has not been named or come forward.
Many years later, in desperation for a remedy to cure his tortured soul, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale takes to the scaffold where Hester had once suffered her shame. He is envious of the public nature of her ...
Hester Prynne came from Amsterdam to Boston two years ago. She came from a poor family. She is married to a misshapen scholar and physician who is much older than she. He has sent her alone to New England with the plan of following her at some later date. Since Hester has not heard from her beloved husband in a long time, she believes he has been lost at sea.
2. The marketplace was already bustling with people. There were common settlers, craftsmen, Native Americans, and blacksmiths. Everyone in the town had taken a day off to celebrate and watch the Procession. The celebration had a shadow of the Elizabethan time in which the political leaders, priests, clergymen, and various other people tried to bring in their old tradition within their celebration and clothing. There were a few wrestling matches going on as fighting with staffs going on somewhere else. The most entertaining scene for the people was a fight with swords and shields on the platform of the pillory. English settlers wore dark sullen colors while the Native Americans dressed in embroidered deer skin, belts and beads, feathers, and bows and arrows. Even though they were separate from the English crowd, they weren’t the most “savage” or wild of
"To be fully human is to balance the heart, the mind, and the spirit.'; One could suggest the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, that one should not violate the sanctity of the human heart. Hester was well ahead of her time, and believed that love was more important than living in a lie. Dimmesdale’s theology and his inclinations render him almost incapable of action; Chillingsworth dammed himself, along with Dimmesdale. Hester was “frank with [Chillingsworth].';
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne has introduced a character that has been judged harshly. Because, she has been misinformed of her husband’s death; therefore, she was greave and had sought comfort resulting in a baby from the lover whom gave her comfort. When her secret had been discovered she was isolated for committing a treacherous crime of adultery, as one of her punishments she was forced to wear an A on her chest. The novel presents a structure of a society, using symbolism and diction to give underline meaning to the themes, portraying religious tendencies ruled by the philosophy of good and evil.
4. The Scarlet Letter was written and published in 1850. The novel was a product of the Transcendentalist and Romantic period.
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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic, The Scarlett Letter, has become one of the most discussed novels of all time. A great deal of` controversy streams from the obvious gender-related issues throughout the story. Considering the setting of seventeenth-century Boston, the plot takes place in a conservative Puritan society. Because of this, Hester Prynne, the protagonist, spends the seven years, over the course of which the book takes place, dealing with the repercussions of what is believed to be a “crime” against God and her community. The situation she is put in is one very few people could truly endure. Yet, she is able to beat all odds and surpass peoples’ expectations of an “ordinary Puritan women.” The complexity of the story goes into the depths of gender equality and the unconventional position this woman has in society. Hawthorne is able to depict conflicting gender roles in The Scarlett Letter by illustrating the expected persona of a Puritan woman and directly contrasting that norm with his very complicated and well-developed character, Hester Prynne.
Before we are first introduced to Hester Prynne, the protagonist, we learn that men and women are gathered around the scaffold kibitzing. The women’s conversation centers around Hester, and the forms of punishment they would have instilled upon her for her sin if they had been given to opportunity to do so. When Hester makes her first appearance, she is leaving the prison, and going to stand on the scaffold. Her sin is a very serious one to the puritans, adultery. As she stands on the scaffold, with the eyes of the populace boring into her, two symbols of her sin are presented to us. These are the scarlet letter, a red ‘A’ which is embroidered onto the bosom of her dress, and her daughter Pearl. Her daughter Pearl was conceived during the adulterous act for which Hester is standing on the scaffold. One of the members of the throng which has gathered is Roger Chillingworth, dressed in Indian garb. Chillingworth is Hester’s husband, who knows nothing of Hester’s adultery—until now. In this primary scaffold scene, the scaffold serves to elevate Hester on a platform of shame. Her ignominy is being reinforced to those who already know of it, and her ac...
Hester was very audacious. She chose not to hide her sin, but instead she confessed her sin before the town. Since her sin was brought before the public, she would then have to face punishment for her sin. The scarlet letter "A" was placed upon her chest for everyone to know of her sin. She then was brought to the town scaffold to be looked upon and judged by the town.
When being questioned on the identity of her child’s father, Hester unflinchingly refuses to give him up, shouting “I will not speak!…my child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!” (47). Hester takes on the full brunt of adultery, allowing Dimmesdale to continue on with his life and frees him from the public ridicule the magistrates force upon her. She then stands on the scaffold for three hours, subject to the townspeople’s disdain and condescending remarks. However, Hester bears it all “with glazed eyed, and an air of weary indifference.” (48). Hester does not break down and cry, or wail, or beg for forgiveness, or confess who she sinned with; she stands defiantly strong in the face of the harsh Puritan law and answers to her crime. After, when Hester must put the pieces of her life back together, she continues to show her iron backbone and sheer determination by using her marvelous talent with needle work “to supply food for her thriving infant and herself.” (56). Some of her clients relish in making snide remarks and lewd commends towards Hester while she works, yet Hester never gives them the satisfaction of her reaction.
This breakaway begins with an introduction of a rose-bush. In a landscape that is "weather-stained," "antique," and "ugly," a delicate and beautiful flower is presented as a polar opposite to the area it grows in. Hawthorne begins introducing it in the same fashion he describes everything else in, as "a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems." However, Hawthorne then continues this description, breaking away from the usual, objective strategy. He talks about the "fragrance and fragile beauty" this bush might offer to a prisoner on their way into the prison. He even goes on to say that he hopes the bush will "symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow." This "light in the darkness" is a symbol of hope for the people of the dark colony just described. So while his purely skeptical and objective tone has prevailed throughout the chapter, this short description offers a chance for redemption for those Hawthorne
Hester Prynne, from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, the Scarlet Letter, faces a crucible. She commits adultery with Reverend Dimmesdale and becomes pregnant with a daughter, Pearl. She is isolated from the community and the general public except for when she must stand upon the scaffold for three hours as part of her punishment for her sin. She must also wear a scarlet letter “A” for adultery on her breast. The town looks at her differently because of her sin but Hester stays true to her personality. Hester fairs her life by honoring her punishment and her mistakes, as well as taking care of Pearl and teaching her to be kind.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is one of the most respected and admired novels of all time. Often criticized for lacking substance and using more elaborate camera work, freely adapted films usually do not follow the original plot line. Following this cliché, Roland Joffe’s version of The Scarlet Letter received an overwhelmingly negative reception. Unrealistic plots and actions are added to the films for added drama; for example, Hester is about to be killed up on the scaffold, when Algonquin members arrive and rescue her. After close analysis, it becomes evident of the amount of work that is put into each, but one must ask, why has the director adapted their own style of depicting the story? How has the story of Hester Prynne been modified? Regarding works, major differences and similarities between the characterization, visual imagery, symbolism, narration and plot, shows how free adaptation is the correct term used.
Hester Prynne, the main character of the novel, was a courageous and honorable person; even though, what she had been known for wasn’t such an admirable deed. Hester Prynne was a very strong person in one’s eyes, because even though she had been publically humiliated in front of all of Boston, she still remained confident in herself and her daughter. She was ordered to wear a scarlet colored piece of fabric, with the letter “A” embroidered in gold on it, on her bosom at all times to show that she had committed adultery. She was mocked all the time and constantly looked down upon in society, because of her sin; but instead of running away from her problems, she st...