Imprisonment of Personal Freedom

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Imprisonment is defined as placing a certain entity into forcible detention. With Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale in ‘The Scarlet Letter’ by Nathaniel Hawthorne and, the servants and daughters of Bernarda in ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’ by Federico Garcia Lorca, there is a constant dwelling around the collision between the pursuit of personal freedom and the imprisonment that subdues the characters’ lives. Moreover, Hester and Dimmesdale are imprisoned by the consequences of their own actions, an adulterous affair; whereas the residents of the Albas’ household are confined involuntarily, due to Bernarda’s crave for power and high social stature. The imprisonment present in both works furthermore deprives the characters from taking joy of their lives. Notwithstanding, it is interesting to analyze whether the characters could escape their respective forms of imprisonment or abide a state of confinement.

In ‘The Scarlet Letter’, situated in 17th century puritan Massachusetts, Hester Prynne lives shamed and alienated from the rest of the Puritan community due to her affair with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. After being tried for adultery, she is sentenced to live the rest of her days wearing a red scarlet letter on her bosom, in order to show the nature of her sin to the Puritan community of Massachusetts. These conditions furthermore act as a catalyst to Hester’s imprisonment, as she is constrained to live as an outcast to society alone with her daughter, Pearl. Despite the fact that she is given the choice to leave Massachusetts, she decides to stay in order to serve her punishment for the atrocities she committed. “The chain that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but could never be bro...

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...ations to achieve high social stature and wealth. In order to do so, Bernarda must suppress her daughters aspirations to achieve personal freedom and live a happy longlasting lives.

Moreover, there appear to be similarities among the main characters in both stories, as their aspirations to pursuit happiness are quashed by the imprisonment ruling their lives. However, it appears to be that the only way out of such imprisonment to personal freedom is through death over redemption of the soul. Reverend Dimmesdale, after publicly confessing his sin and exposing the scarlet mark on his chest, he “stood, with a flush of triumph on his face, as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory.” (Hawthorne, 217) This demonstrates that Dimmesdale could only achieve personal freedom through death, as he gives out his last breath after his farewell words and dies.

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