The Adultery Affect In Puritan society adultery was considered one of the worst sins a person could commit. A person who committed adultery was usually put to death and if not was ostracized by the entire community. In the novel “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne commits adultery and is forced to wear a bright red “A” on all of her clothes to display that she has sinned. The “A” on Hester’s chest causes her to be tormented by society and gives her a social stigma. Hester’s husband Roger Chillingworth is tormented by Hester’s sins as well. The scarlet letter on Hester’s chest is a constant reminder of the sin that Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale committed. Due to the community’s attitude towards adultery Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale were all greatly impacted by the “A”. Plagued with a scarlet “A” on her chest Hester Prynne had to face the direct consequences of committing adultery in a Puritan society. It is clear from the …show more content…
From the very beginning the fact that his wife committed adultery with an unknown man horrified him. This horror made him decide to keep their marriage a secret and take on a fake identity. On page 80 of “The Scarlet Letter” Mr. Chillingworth says, “One thing, thou that wast my wife, I would enjoin upon thee. Thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour. Keep, likewise, mine!” Chillingworth is saying that just like how Hester refuses to tell who she committed adultery with she should not speak of their marriage. Chillingworth becomes obsessed with finding out who Hester cheated on him with. When he begins to suspect that it is in fact Reverend Dimmesdale he begins to torture the man. By the end of the novel Chillingworth has become an evil man and his actions are more sinful than both Hester’s and Reverend Dimmesdale. The scarlet letter changed Chillingworth from a highly educated scholar into a wicked human
The Scarlet Letter starts off by throwing Hester Prynne into drama after being convicted for adultery in a Puritan area. Traveling from Europe to America causes complications in her travel which also then separates her from her husband, Roger Chillingworth for about three years. Due to the separation, Hester has an affair with an unknown lover resulting in having a child. Ironically, her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, is a Reverend belonging to their church who also is part of the superiors punishing the adulterer. No matter how many punishments are administered to Hester, her reactions are not changed. Through various punishments, Hester Prynne embraces her sin by embroidering a scarlet letter “A” onto her breast. However, she is also traumatized deep within from everything she’s been through. Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts this story of sin by using rhetorical devices such as allusion, alliteration and symbolism.
In ‘The Scarlet Letter’ Nathaniel Hawthorne has created a society in which “religion and law were almost identical” (Hawthorne 57). Just as in any other society, all the members within the limits must obey the law. Disobeying these laws result in punishment. One such character is Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. After Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale’s affair with Hester Prynne, Hester is forced into a permanent state of shame when she is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest. Be that as it may, something isn't right about the Reverend’s retribution. Instead of being shamed publicly, Reverend Dimmesdale’s punishment is much different. Instead of living with the torments of others, Reverend
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.
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...
Hester Prynne has a fairly unconventional approach to her “sin.” She does not feel ashamed of her wrong and therefore does not feel guilt as others in The Scarlet Letter do. She is marked with a large “A” for her sin of adultery and embraces this by embroidering the letter. "And never had ...
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.
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.
The scarlet letter is first introduced as a mark of shame for Hester, a young married woman who commits adultery resulting with a child. In this time, during the 17th century, women are expected to stay loyal and obedient to their husbands. However, since Hester broke these standards, her puritan acquaintances see this as an immense and horrible crime. Along with a punishment of prison, she was forced to wear the brand of an A on her chest, representing adulteress. She is ostracized from
The scarlet "A" is the most important symbol in the Scarlet Letter. The letter "A" does not have a "universally symbolic relationship" with adultery. The letter "A" was the first letter of adultery and the Puritans put the negative connotation on the letter. The community interprets the cosmic "A" as Angel, signifying the passing of Governor Winthrop. The letter on Hester's bosom represented the sin of adultery, yet as that it meant different things to Hester, Dimsdale, Pearl, Chillingworth and the Puritan community. To Hester it represented "alienation and unjust humiliation" .
Chillingworth hides his true identity throughout the book, equivalent to the way Dimmesdale hides his guilt from the town. Evidence is given in chapter four that suggests he is Hester's husband. “You have kept your lover’s secret. Keep mine, too! No one knows me here. Don’t tell a soul that you ever called me husband!” Chillingworth proclaims to his wife Hester. (Sparknotes). Chillingworth’s hidden identity is a symbol for Dimmesdale’s guilt because in both cases the truth is kept from everyone except Hester. Dimmesdale is full of guilt from the time Hester stands on the scaffold. His guilt is so strong it causes him to feel sick, and become weak in his body. The town recognizes Dimmesdale’s sickness, however they have no clue it is caused by his abundant amount of guilt. This is also symbolized by Chillingworth’s
In the beginning of The Scarlet Letter, the letter is understood as a label of punishment and sin being publicized. Hester Prynne bears the label of “A” signifining adulterer upon her chest. Because of this scorching red color label she becomes the outcast of her society. She wears this symbol of punishment and it become a burden throughout her life. The letter “produces only a reflection of her scarlet letter; likewise, the townspeople's image of Hester revolves around her sin. The evil associated with Hester's actions and the letter on her chest consume all aspects of her life, concealing her true beauty, mind, and soul” (R. Warfel 421-425). Society pushed blame upon Hester Prynne, and these events lead to the change of her life. The Puritans whom Prynne is surround by view the letter as a symbol from the devil, controversially some individuals look upon the letter, sigh and fell sympathy towards her because they have or are involved in this same situation. Nonetheless the haunting torture Hester Prynne battles daily drags on, Nathaniel Hawthorne shows this torture “of an impulse and passionate nature. She had fortified herself to encounter the stings and venomous stabs of public contumely wreaking itself in every variety of insult but...
In “The Scarlet Letter,” the main character Hester get punished for adultery. In the beginning, she thought that her husband has died so she fell in love with Dimmesdale. However, her husband did not die and came back. Her husband, Chillingworth, later finds out that Hester has a secret lover. Therefore tried to find out who he is. At first Chillingworth does not reveal himself as Hester’s husband because she was being punished for adultery and he did not want to be ashamed. Later he tries to find out Hester’s secret lover by asking her but she will not tell him which makes him for desperate and angry. When he finds out that the secret lover is Dimmesdale, he finds out a secret about Dimmesdale.
In today’s society, adultery is not viewed as it would have been viewed back in the 1600’s. Adultery is defined as a voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and a person who is not his or her spouse. In society today, people understand that it is not right to commit adultery, despite knowing that it is often done more. Adultery is committed more now, in the view of its not a punishable act, as it was in the 1600’s. Committing adultery in the 1600’s was considered committing one of the sins that can not be forgiven. Many people were killed for this type of act, however as generations past people begin to view adultery differently.
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...
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne analyzes Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. In the story, Hester is the main character of the story and was called Mistress Prynne (Hawthorne 70). Dimmesdale, in the story was referred to as Reverend Dimmesdale (Hawthorne 90). Chillingworth was originally named, Roger Prynne but later in the story he changed his name to Roger Chillingworth. In the story, Hester committed adultery with Dimmesdale against Chillingworth and in the beginning she got punished and sent to prison and later she got to get out of prison but with the exception of having to wear the letter A on her breast every time she went out in to town.