Hester Prynne. The face of beauty, sin, and inner-strength. She wears an “A” upon her bosom and embraces another symbol of her sin in her arms. Hester Prynne made one mistake that got the townspeople ranting. The townspeople make rude comments about Hester and the beautifully embroidered “A”. She stood upon a scaffold, Pearl in hand, and allows her peers to judge her. She didn’t react to any of the mean comments or glares. Her husband and lover keep their identities concealed from society while she takes the blame for the crime. In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, he illustrates to readers how strong Hester 's character is, revealed through her public humiliation, and her lover’s actions towards her. Hawthorne presents Hester as the face of adultery. Readers don’t know the full story on the sin, therefore, readers assume she is who the townspeople say she is. (quote on townspeople) Hester stands with confidence and a poker face as her
He fell in love with Hester because of her striking beauty and, he too, wants to keep his identity a secret to his peers. He feels guilty while he sees Hester standing on the scaffold, but he doesn’t stand up there with her. He should have been a man and admitted to the crime like Hester did. After a while, Dimmesdale’s guilt eats away at his health. Dimmesdale becomes ill due to the medical services given by Chillingworth. Chillingworth knows Dimmesdale is Hester’s lover and he will get the revenge he wants. Dimmesdale is oblivious to Chillingworth’s “kindness” and his health declines quickly. One night, Dimmesdale finds himself standing on the scaffold like he was going to shout to the world that he was Hester’s partner. (quote on when he was on the scaffold). This was the time to admit his sin so the guilt would lessen. Hawthorne is showing how weak Dimmesdale is as a person and that Hester doesn’t deserve someone as weak as
Hawthorne shows what actually happens behind closed doors. To the people of the town Hester Prynne was just a harlot with a bastard child, but to the readers she was a strong woman who was going to be more than just a harlot. Hawthorne showed that Hester Prynne, and her were actual people with thoughts and feelings and not just a sinner and the product of the sin as the town saw them. The people of the town saw Hester as a disgrace, but with all the torture they gave her was she really the one who was in the
Hester Prynne, the protagonist in the book The Scarlet Letter, has committed the sin of adultery, but learned to use that mistake as a form of strength. Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, sent her to America and was supposed to follow her, but never arrived in Boston. While Hester was waiting on Chillingworth, she had an affair with the town minister, Dimmesdale. As a result, Hester gave birth to a beautiful daughter and was forced to wear the scarlet
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.
He defies the system of education by leaving the institution and starting his own school. He did this because he believed following a set system with rules would hurt his integrity. This similar act plays out in the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the novel, main character Hester Prynne cares for her child despite what others think. She puts little importance to the townspeople's ridicule and judgement and continues to walk through the marketplace with her head held high. Hester keeps her integrity and continues to focus on her most important goal, which is to look after her daughter Pearl and give her all the love she deserves. Like Henry, Hester showed strength through her determination of keeping her strong moral principles and making her own decisions. Despite being judged and hated, Hester stayed sane and together because she had her integrity and knew the importance of defying against all external forces to be able to stick to what she believed
Dimmesdale, a Puritan minister, has had an affair (which he chose to do) with Chillingworth’s wife and he can’t come to the point where he can confess his sin to the public. Therefore, he is a secret sinner. By being this secret sinner Dimmesdale begins to physically and mentally break down. He begins to emotionally and physically beat himself up, “he whipped himself, starved himself as an act of penance until his knees trembled beneath him, and stayed up all night having long vigils and sometimes having visions” (Hawthorne 96). Dimmesdale’s sin has caught up with him and it is affecting his present along with his future; his secret sin is eating him up. He is beating himself up because he has kept it locked inside of him when he should have openness about his sin. Hester has openness about the sin they committed together, and it is not eating her up like it is eating up Dimmesdale. Not only has Dimmesdale been beating himself up, literally, over hi...
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 the novel, The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne, the main character, was forced to wear a letter “A” because of the sin she had committed. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne changed the way Hester and the villagers looked at her. At the beginning of the novel, her letter stood for “adultery,” but by the end of the novel, the meaning of the letter had changed from bad to good, it changed from being the symbol of shame, to the symbol of ability and honor.
Dimmesdale needed forgiveness in order to live with himself. The guilt of his sin, ate away at him until his death. Dimmesdale died too scared and afraid that people wouldn’t forgive him for what he did. Dimmesdale states “Let me now do the will which he hath made plain before my sight. For Hester, I am a dying man. So let me haste to take my shame upon me.” Dimmesdale is stating that he admits his afraidness and that he won’t admit to his sins for that reason.Instead, he would rather die scared and afraid and decided to take his secrets to the grave. However though, Chillingworth showed outraged to learn about how Dimmesdale is the father. But Chillingworth didn’t have the heart to forgive him for his adultery. Chillingworth stated “I shall seek this man as I have sought truth in books, as I have sought gold and alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble.” This tells us that Chillingworth was not able to forgive Dimmesdale because he believed there was only evil in
Hester Prynne, “The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had 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 complexation, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes.” (11). In this quote Hawthorne depicts Hester as lady-like with great beauty, elegance, and intelligence; continually Hawthorne mentioned how Hester’s beauty stands out from the dark Puritan society. However,
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is one of the most famous American authors of all American literary history. The novel is considered one of the greatest novels in American literary history. In the story, Hester, the main character of the novel, is condemned to wear the scarlet letter "A" on her chest as a permanent sign of her sin. The author describes the torment suffered by Hester and her partner in the adultery, the minister Arthur Dimmesdale, in the later years. The story begins at the end of Hester's imprisonment after her affair and through many years to her final acceptance of her place in the community as the wearer of the scarlet letter, a symbol of shame.
Hester Prynne adapts the meaning of the scarlet letter by converting it into something that will symbolize her experiences and character. Hester's sin is part of who she is, and running away or taking off the scarlet letter would be denying a new part of her. Hester begins to believe in the letter she is wearing, as she welcomes the effect the symbol creates in her life by making it a part of her, like an arm is a part of her body. Although the symbolism of the scarlet letter changes throughout the book, its first meaning “adulterer”, becomes an adjective that describes her character, eventually becoming her whole
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.
Hester Prynne committed a crime so severe that it changed her life into coils of torment and defeat. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester is publicly recognized as an adulteress and expelled from society. Alongside the theme of isolation, the scarlet letter, or symbol of sin, is meant to shame Hester but instead transforms her from a woman of ordinary living into a stronger person.
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.
The people of the community view Hester in the beginning of the novel as a terrible evil person who committed adultery but as the novel progressed she became a symbol of hope and redemption for women as a whole. By stating, “Many refused to recognize the A for its original meaning. They said it stood for “able,” so strong a woman was Hester Prynne.”(Hawthorne 209), supports the fact that the scarlet letter changed how Hester is viewed by the community. The women of the community at first despised Hester but once the meaning of letter changed it affected how Hester was viewed as