The Scarlet Letter: Moral and Social Themes
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, there are many moral and social themes develped throughout the novel. Each theme is very important to the overall effect of the novel. In essence, The Scarlet Letter is a story of sin, punishment and the importance of truth. One theme which plays a big role in The Scarlet Letter is that of sin and its effects. Throughout the novel there were many sins committed by various characters. The effects of these sins are different in each character and every character was punished in a unique way. Two characters were perfect examples of this theme in the novel. Hester Prynne and The Reverend Dimmesdale best demonstrated the theme of the effects of sin.
One character who demonstrated the effects of sin was Hester Prynne. Hester Prynne commits adultery with the Reverend Dimmesdale. Because this act resulted in a child, she was unable to hide her wrongdoing while Dimmesdale’s analogous sin went unnoticed. Her punishment for her crime was to spend a few hours on the scaffold to face public humiliation, and she was forced to wear the letter “A” on her clothes for the rest of her life. Hester’s punishment for her sin was distinguished in that the results of her actions were for the most part external. Hawthorne describes what Hester’s punishment was like when he states, “In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished.”(p.44) Although Hester was somewhat emotionally damaged through public humiliation and alienation, Hester was actually internally content at the fact that she was paying for her crime. The consequences which Hester faced for her actions were the result of her admission of guilt. This proved to be much less harsh then the internal punishment which Dimmesdale faced.
The Reverend Dimmesdale was another character that demonstrated the effects of sin. He committed the same offense that Hester committed, adultery. The difference between Dimmesdale and Hester was that Dimmesdale was not publicly punished for his crime while Hester was. Because of this, Dimmesdale felt extremely guilty. This feeling of guilt was so atrocious that it mentally and physically withered Dimmesdale, as he felt a very strong need to repent and cleanse his soul.
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne attempted to expose the varying ways in which different people deal with lingering guilt from sins they have perpetrated. The contrasting characters of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale ideally exemplified the differences in thought and behavior people have for guilt. Although they were both guilty of committing the same crime, these two individuals differed in that one punished themselves with physical and mental torture and the other chose to continue on with their life, devoting it to those less fortunate than they.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a truly outstanding author. His detailed descriptions and imagery will surely keep people interested in reading The Scarlet Letter for years to come. In writing this book he used themes evident throughout the entirety of the novel. These themes are illustrated in what happens to the characters and how they react. By examining how these themes affect the main characters, Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth, one can obtain a better understanding of what Hawthorne was trying to impress upon his readers.
Everyone can see that the Creature is guilty of the murder of Justine, Elizabeth, and William. There is no doubt in my mind that the creature was guilty of murder. Just because Victor Frankenstein brought the creature to life does not make the Creature responsible for these murders. The Creature is a person with a heart and a brain who is capable of making his own decisions. So I hope that everyone that heard this story of these horrible murders would see that the Creature is guilty of these murders and not Victor Frankenstein.
Without an honorable reputation a person is not worthy of respect from others in their society. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, the struggle to shake off the past is an underlying theme throughout the novel. Characters in this novel go through their lives struggling with trying to cope with the guilt and shame associated with actions that lost them their honorable reputation. Particularly, Hawthorne shows the lasting effect that sin and guilt has on two of the main characters in the book: Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale.
One of the main themes in The Scarlet Letter is that of the secret. The plot of the book is centered on Hester Prynne’s secret sin of adultery. Nathaniel Hawthorne draws striking parallelism between secrets held and the physical and mental states of those who hold them. The Scarlet Letter demonstrates that a secret or feeling kept within slowly engulfs and destroys the soul such as Dimmesdale’s sin of hypocrisy and Chillingworth’s sin of vengeance, while a secret made public, such as Prynne’s adultery, can allow a soul to recover and even strengthen.
“The term “nature versus nurture” is used to refer to a long-running scientific debate. The source of debate is the question of which has a greater influence on development: someone's innate characteristics provided by genetics, or someone's environment. In fact, the nature versus nurture debate has been largely termed obsolete by many researchers, because both innate characteristics and environment play a huge role in development, and they often intersect”. (Smith, 2010 p. 1)
Many scientists have accepted that people’s genetic makeup shape both their physical and mental capabilities. Thus, their characteristics such as eye color and hair color are mainly determined by specific genes which are nested in each human cell. Moreover, the nature theory conceptualizes on traits such as intelligence, aggression; personality and sexual orientation are also embedded in a person’s DNA.
The concept of cloning has been around since the 1800’s, although, in the field of scientists, it has slowly been evolving into a vigorously debated topic, throughout the last 3 decades. Cloning is essentially defined as the process of artificially reproducing genetically identical organisms. Scientists all around the world, through research, are still learning more about the topic, but the fascinating process officially gained awareness as a result of a 1986 experiment conducted by Ian Wilmut, scientist at the Roslin Institute in Scotland. The project was essentially centred around a sheep referred to as “Dolly” that was cloned in a lab using a frozen mammary cell from another adult sheep. At the time, this was a significant milestone in the field, as all cloning up to this point had been done using embryos, and never actual adult cells. The Dolly experiment served as a catalyst for additional intensive research, which consequently resulted in a myriad of new benefits and uses for cloning. From that point on, we have made many advancements, and currently, in our modern day society, scientists are more capable of putting their research into practice, with the assistance of the constant improvements in technology. The method of cloning has already been implemented as a solution to infertility, and plants and animals can be cloned for the purpose of creating new possible food alternatives. The main benefit of cloning revolves around health, as lives can be saved or prolonged, thanks to a theoretically simple process known as organ transplantation, where for example, the parts from a cloned pig can be used to replace those malfunctioning, in a human. If scientists keep doing research on the topic at the current rate, and conducting e...
Nathaniel Hawthorne exploits the life of Puritanism in his guilty pleasure The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne lends the reader into an insight of life and human nature. The Scarlet Letter reveals the ordeal and evils of Hester Prynne, a woman living in colonial Boston whom was found guilty of adultery. Hester’s punishment was to then wear a visible sign of her sin’ the scarlet letter “A.” As the novel progresses the reader is introduced to Arthur Dimmesdale, the minister Hester had an affair with; and Roger Chillingworth, the estranged husband of Hester whom is out for revenge. The Scarlet Letter examines the relations of the main characters and the consequence of these characters to Hester’s sin. Hester’s sin of adultery interacts with themes of alienation from society, revenge, creativity, and consequences of breaking the moral code. The underlying sin Hawthorn explores throughout The Scarlet Letter is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is easily defines as a falsehood between one's professed beliefs and feelings and one's actual beliefs and feelings, or an application of a criticism to others that one does not apply to oneself. Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the Puritan society were steep in their sin of hypocrisy. Hawthorne reveals through the pages of The Scarlet Letter that hypocrisy is indeed a sin by punishing the offenders.
Through Hester and the symbol of the scarlet letter, Hawthorne reveals how sin can be utilized to change a person for the better, in allowing for responsibility, forgiveness, and a renewed sense of pride. In a Puritan society that strongly condemns adultery one would expect Hester to leave society and never to return again, but that does not happen. Instead, Hester says, “Here…had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom.” Hes...
Portrayal of Puritan Society in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter In the introductory sketch to Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel the "The Scarlet Letter", the reader is informed that one of the author's ancestors persecuted the Quakers harshly. The latter's son was a high judge in the Salem witch trials, put into literary form in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" (Judge Hathorne appears there). We learn that Hawthorne feels ashamed for their deeds, and that he sees his ancestors and the Puritan society as a whole with critical eyes. Consequently, both open and subtle criticism of the Puritans' practices is applied throughout the novel.
Another group of reasons concern Dolly. Originally an attempt at creating a sheep that produced a special quality of milk, Dolly was created from a group led by Dr. Ian Wilmut at the Roslin Institute in Scotland on July 5, 1996. They used a different method for mammals than used previously by starving the pre-cloned cells into hibernation, and then using nuclear transfer (copying the nucleus of the cell). Some say that if we continue with cloning, it would be extremely risky, because it is known that it took 277 tries to create Dolly. However, bans have been made to prohibit public uses of cloning. It is also known that Dolly was born with short telomeres.
As a mother, I am shocked and dismayed by the general acceptance of the myth of genetic determinism. One's environment, including people one interacts with, has an undeniable influence on how one develops. Nonetheless, many scientists disregard the impact of environment on one's intelligence. I do not deny that one's biology is a crucial part of one's identity. Inheritance of physical traits is obvious. Children often look "just like" their father or mother, or another relative. One's genes determine eye and hair color, height and body build. I believe, however, that what makes us human is not something that can be found in...
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.
On August 19, 1992 in Houston, Texas, Mary Fisher, the HIV-positive daughter of prominent Republican fundraiser Max Fisher, gives her keynote speech “A Whisper of Aids” to the Republican National Convention (1). Fisher’s purpose is “to lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of HIV/AIDS” epidemic (1). Fisher succeeds in her overall persuasiveness by effectively using ethos, logos, and pathos throughout her address to the conservative Republican Party to advocate for awareness, education, and the prevention of HIV/AIDS.