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Morality in the scarlet letter
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Think about how much you love your family. How would you feel if someone tried to take them away from you? In the book The Scarlet Letter a young woman named Hester Prynne had to face this dire situation. After a heavily regretted mistake with a man from her village, Hester gave birth to a beautiful little girl whom she named Pearl. Pearl’s beauty radiated and everyone who saw her noticed it with great awe. However, despite her physical beauty, on the inside Pearl appeared a rather strange child, almost acting as a witch. When Pearl reached the age of about six, she and her mother, received a call to visit the governor’s mansion to discuss an important issue. Once they arrived the multiple men present at the mansion aroused the ponderous issue …show more content…
Is it possible to love a mistake more than anything else in the world? For Hester it certainly was. Even though Hester did not mean to have this child, that did not change the way she felt about Pearl. After her public shame, Pearl was the only good thing that remained in Hester’s life and she cherished the child with all her being. No other family or friends truly loved her after she committed that appalling sin, except Pearl, who, no matter how much Hester sinned, would never cease to love her. As Hester pleaded with the men to let Pearl remain in her keeping, she claimed that Pearl provided her sole source of happiness. Pearl gave Hester something to love, and something to take joy in even after the village began looking down on her everywhere she went. Hester had lost so much already, she did not deserve to lose her joy as well. Hester simply could not bear the thought of losing her precious Pearl. Boldly, she expressed to the men in the governor’s home, that she would rather die than have her child ripped away from her loving arms. Simply imagining the loss of Pearl, seemed unbearable to poor Hester; that is how much the child truly meant to Hester
The two of them, after Dimmesdale dies, continue with their plans to go back to England where they hope for a better life. Once in England, the two are able to change their lives around for the better. Pearl is even found to have a family of her own: “Mr. Surveyor Pue, who made investigations a century later, … Pearl was not only alive, but married, and happy, and mindful of her mother; and that she would most joyfully have entertained that sad and lonely mother at her fireside” ( Hawthorne 392). Pearl was able to overcome her old life and create a new one, a better one, one that was just for her. Even though her mother was no longer around she tried her best to kept in touch with her. She also kept her and her mother’s experience in mind never to let herself go back to that life. After spending many years in England, Hester finally returns to New England. When she returns she is full of sorrow and regret; however, she continues to wear her A on upon her chest as a reminder of her pain. With returning to the land of sin, people came to Hester, mostly women, with problems of their own. They hope by talking to someone who has been through so much will help them, or give them insight on what life is like to be on the outside: “And, as Hester Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought all their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble. Women, more especially,—in the continually recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion,—or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought,—came to Hester’s cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted and counseled them, as best she might” (Hawthorne 392-393). Even though Hester was miserable and thought that no
Pearl is a symbol of Hester’s transgressions and even has similar qualities as the sin which she represents. Pearl’s life and behavior directly reflects the unacceptable and abnormal nature of Hester’s adulterous sin. Hester is plagued with more than just a letter “A”; she is given a child from her affair who is just as much a reminder of her sin as the scarlet letter. Ultimately Hester overcomes the shame associated the scarlet letter and creates a sense of family for herself and Pearl. This relationship is integral to the theme of this novel and the development of its characters.
Hester is a youthful, beautiful, proud woman who has committed an awful sin and a scandal that changes her life in a major way. She commits adultery with a man known as Arthur Dimmesdale, leader of the local Puritan church and Hester’s minister. The adultery committed results in a baby girl named Pearl. This child she clutches to her chest is the proof of her sin. This behavior is unacceptable. Hester is sent to prison and then punished. Hester is the only one who gets punished for this horrendous act, because no one knows who the man is that Hester has this scandalous affair with. Hester’s sin is confessed, and she lives with two constant reminders of that sin: the scarlet letter itself, and Pearl, the child conceived with Dimmesdale. Her punishment is that she must stand upon a scaffold receiving public humiliation for several hours each day, wearing the scarlet letter “A” on her chest, represe...
Reading the Scarlet Letter reminds me of one of my own experience. When I was a fifth grade elementary student, two of my friends and I agreed to cheat on a geography test. On the day of the test, one of my friends was caught. The teacher found the cheat sheet where it showed the handwriting of the three of us. When he was asked who the other two is, he remained silent. The teacher said that he will be punished, standing in the corner of the classroom for one straight week, and it will be lighter if only he told our name. My friend still did not say a word, so he received the punishment. What he did was similar to what Hester Prynne does. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is portrayed as a woman with remarkable strength of character through direct and indirect characterization.
with. Having a heart blinded by love Hester choose to stay in the town and
A change is to make or become different. In the Scarlet Letter change is very evident in the main character Hester Prynne. Hester has undergone both physical and emotional changes that have made her more acceptable to the Puritan Society.
In the beginning of the novel, Hester Prynne exits the prison of the Puritan community of Boston, a large letter “A” clearly visible on her chest and a child in her arms. This is the first time the letter makes an appearance, and it is here where readers realize Hester has done something terribly wrong. The letter “A” sewn onto her clothes initially represents “adulterer”, but who exactly is the father of Pearl, the child Hester is holding, if her husband has been missing for two years? The townspeople would love to know the answer to that question, too, but it is only revealed to readers a few chapters into the story as being the unexpected Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale faces an
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...
As a living reminder of Hester’s extreme sin, Pearl is her constant companion. From the beginning Pearl has always been considered as an evil child. For Hester to take care of such a demanding child, put lots of stress onto her life. Hester at times was in a state of uncontrollable pressure. “Gazing at Pearl, Hester Prynne often dropped her work upon her knees, and cried out with an agony which she would fain have hidden, but which made utterance for itself, betwixt speech and a groan, ‘O Father in heaven- if Thou art still my Father- what is this being which I have brought into the world!’” (Hawthorne, 77).
Hester Prynne, the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, exhibits considerable character growth both over the course of her life and during the events of the novel. Her view of herself and her perspective on the role of women in the world evolve as she learns from new experiences. She moves through the stages of self-centered happiness in her childhood, deep despair and depression as an adult, and a later more hopeful and selfless existence.
"Lovely ladies ready for the call. Standing up or lying down or any way at all. Bargain prices up against the wall" (Boublil). The selling of one's body is consensual. When a woman decides to put herself for sale, she will be given the cold shoulder by her peers. Many women make the decision to sell themselves solely to provide for a child. The song "Lovely Ladies" from the musical Les Misérables, involves whores in France selling themselves to men in a Parisian back ally. The musical Les Misérables was based on a book written by Victor Hugo. One character in this book goes by the name of Fantine. She had a child out of wedlock to a man who left her and their child alone. She had to work to support not only herself but also her daughter, Cosette.
...er to overcome the passion, once so wild that had brought her to ruin and shame." (Hawthorne, 165) It was Hester's motherly sentiments to nurture and love her child that saved her from temptation and from death and opened her heart to the poor and needy around her. It was the torturous fixation of her child upon her shame that tempered and refined her character and led her toward the precious virtue of being true to herself and others. And it was the reflection of her own character, even at Its worst, in her child that brought Hester to a greater understanding of herself and a desire to build a better life for Pearl. Pearl was more than merely her mother's tormentor--she was her blessing, her life, and the giver of the freedom to live a life true to herself and to her God.
By being with Hester, Pearl got to experience a different manner in life which enabled her to see an outside perspective of Puritan life and learn moral lessons from it. Pearl was not born into the typica...
The Scarlet Letter is a classic novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne which entangles the lives of two characters Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale together through an unpardonable sin-adultery. With two different lifestyles, this act of adultery affects each of them differently. Hester is an average female citizen who is married to a Roger Chillingworth from Europe while Dimmesdale is a Puritan minister from England (61). Along the course of time after the act of adultery had happened, Hester could not hide the fact that she was bearing a child that was not of her husband, but from another man. She never reveals that this man is in fact Arthur Dimmesdale, and so only she receives the punishment of prison. Although it is Hester who receives the condemnation and punishment from the townspeople and officials, Dimmesdale is also punished by his conscience as he lives his life with the secret burden hanging between him and Hester.
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, the author Nathaniel Hawthorne uses many literal and figurative items to illustrate the significance of various characters or themes. Coupled with the tangible evidence given, the reader can make many miscellaneous assumptions of the importance of these items to directly and indirectly contribute to the issues of the novel. One cryptic item that symbolizes more than it seems to is the appearance of one of the main characters, Hester Prynne. Hester Prynne's appearance and hair signify the levels of will and determination she possesses at the moment.