What exactly is this secondary community? Hawthorne creates this sort of secondary community that is always there and is able to express emotions that are the very opposite of what the Puritans show by using nature. “Nature personification, for Hawthorne, is an effective vehicle with which to bridge the gap between the community of humankind and the community of nature” (Daniel 3). Hester and Pearl are outcasts from the Puritan society due to Hester’s sin. She broke their rules of morality, and for this reason nature must be used as their peer. “Mother and daughter stood together in the same circle of seclusion from society” (Hawthorne 78) and so, it is nature who lends a hand and helps. In the early pages of the first chapter of The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne is already using personification involving nature. “But on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush…which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him” (Hawthorne 41). This personification of the rosebush serves as a …show more content…
reminder to express hope for those being condemned, and sympathy for those going out to die. “Hawthorne hopes that a wild rose beside the prison door may serve ‘to symbolize some sweet moral blossom, that may be found along the track, or to relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow’” (Gross 315). Sunlight is one of the main elements of nature that is personified in this novel, and it is one of the most powerful elements that Hawthorne uses. Hawthorne uses sunlight to portray the feelings of both rejection and feelings of acceptance. Pearl tells Hester, “the sunshine does not love you. It ruins away and hides itself…” (Hawthorne 152). Hester is unable to be in the presence of the sunlight with the scarlet letter on her, but when she takes it off, there is a flood of sunshine. She is suddenly accepted, but only by nature. “Hawthorne uses the reactions of a personified nature to portray a more benevolent view than would be issued from the human element” (Daniel 6). Light is also used negatively in terms of the shadows that it produces. Roger Chillingworth, the real husband of Hester, turns into a picture of the Devil himself as he sets out for revenge. “We infer the potential evil in him from the snake imagery, the deformity, and the darkness associated with him” (Gross 32). This darkness that we see associated with Chillingworth is also how the people in the novel see him. At first he is readily accepted to help their beloved minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. By the time the end of the book comes about we see Pearl, afraid of him, and aware of an evil that surrounds him. However, this darkness is not only associated with Roger Chillingworth. The Puritans in the novel are afraid of the forest lying beyond the town. The Puritans called the forest “a realm for the Black Man, a meeting place for his followers, a habitat for the savages, and a locale for sin” (Daniel 6).
They see the forest as a place only for the Devil and his minions. Yet, while the Puritans see it as an evil place, it is used as a good place for the ones who the Puritans consider as being evil, or unworthy of being in their sacred community. It is this ever present community embodied again as a forest. The forest is accepting of all of the misfits and outcasts of the mainstream society. “The environment affords Pearl safe surroundings in which to roam and play… [and] is where two lovers are allowed to be alone for the first time in seven years without the frowning disapproval or condemnation of their human peers” (Daniel
6). Hawthorne makes sure not to leave out anyone in the human aspect of a community when personifying it through nature. He includes the chatty people who gossip, and he chooses to personify them through a stream. While in the woods, Pearl attempts to listen the story that this babbling brook has to say. However, Pearl is unable to understand what it is says. “…The little stream would not be comforted, and still kept telling its unintelligible secret of some very mournful mystery that had happened… [or] that was meant to happen- within the verge of the dismal forest” (Hawthorne 155). Just as the human community sees all and tells all, so does the natural community. The brook tells of the sad things, but also of the good things. “The course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood’s heart of mystery, which had become a mystery of joy” (Hawthorne 168). It is in this forest, and by this stream, that Hester finally removes her scarlet letter. The secondary community that is found in nature serves to create a place of safety and comfort. For this reason, Hester takes Pearl away from society to live by the ocean out in the woods. It is with Pearl that nature best reacts. “As the child plays alone near the stream, the great forest becomes her playmate: it offers her partridge berries; its wild denizens are not afraid…a wolf offers ‘his savage head to be patted by her hand’” (Daniel 7). So nature, the second community, becomes readily accepting of the Puritan community’s outcasts: the sinner Hester and her demon-child Pearl. “Hester and Pearl stood are forced by a ‘civilized’ community of humans to form a community of their own” (Daniel 8).
Pearl is an example of the innocent result of sin. All the kids make fun of Pearl and they disclude her from everything. She never did anything wrong, but everyone treats her like she committed the sin also. Pearl acts out against the children that make fun of her and acts like a crazy child. She cannot control the sins that her parents committed.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's work, The Scarlet Letter, nature plays a very symbolic role. Throughout the book, nature is incorporated into the story line. One example of this is with the character of Pearl. Pearl is very different than all the other characters due to her special relationship with Nature. Hawthorne personifies Nature as sympathetic towards sins against the puritan way of life. Hester's sin causes Nature to accept Pearl.
Clearly, during the forest scene, Hawthorne is giving the reader a sense of how unnatural this family that came from a single adulterous act is. It sheds light on Hawthorne’s romantic views because it shows how an unnatural family is detestable. In a much more broad sense, it gives the reader a glimpse of Hawthorne’s own personal theology. He firmly believes in severe consequences for sin and it shows in his novel.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is one of the most respected and admired novels of all time. Often criticized for lacking substance and using more elaborate camera work, freely adapted films usually do not follow the original plot line. Following this cliché, Roland Joffe’s version of The Scarlet Letter received an overwhelmingly negative reception. Unrealistic plots and actions are added to the films for added drama; for example, Hester is about to be killed up on the scaffold, when Algonquin members arrive and rescue her. After close analysis, it becomes evident of the amount of work that is put into each, but one must ask, why has the director adapted their own style of depicting the story? How has the story of Hester Prynne been modified? Regarding works, major differences and similarities between the characterization, visual imagery, symbolism, narration and plot, shows how free adaptation is the correct term used.
“…Hester Prynne, whose heart had lost its regular and healthy throb, wandered without a clew in the dark labyrinth of mind: now turned aside by an insurmountable precipice…” What does it mean to exist? The fact or state of living or having objective reality is existence. The viewpoint she created was that women can be independent and shouldn’t be shamed by their communities; there were two people involved in this sin of adultery, so why was she the only one punished for it? Instead of hiding in shame, the existence of women like herself, should be open and embrace who they are. According to the passage from The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne’s viewpoint on her own existence and that of women was represented through imagery, rhetorical devices, and diction.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic The Scarlet Letter, nature plays a very important and symbolic role. Hawthorne uses nature to convey the mood of a scene, to describe characters, and to link the natural elements with human nature. Many of the passages that have to do with nature accomplish more than one of these ideas. All throughout the book, nature is incorporated into the story line. The deep symbolism conveyed by certain aspects of nature helps the reader gain a deeper understanding of the plight and inner emotions of the characters in the novel.
4. The Scarlet Letter was written and published in 1850. The novel was a product of the Transcendentalist and Romantic period.
Throughout his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne reveals character through the use of imagery and metaphor.
After reading any sort of book or story, the reader may sit back and think about how the book was written. For example, one may look at the style, genre, and origins of the book. In this case, after reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I took a look back at how this great author created such a great work of literature that we still read some 160 years later. What I found was that this is simply a piece of well-written, mind enhancing symbolic fiction. It's interesting to take a good look at how Hawthorne uses symbols to get his messages across to the reader. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses symbols to better support his main ideas or other points of interest. Exploring this book inside and out there are many objects, characters, and figures, or colors that are used to signify abstract thoughts or concepts. For example the scarlet letter itself is a one of Hawthorne's brilliant symbols. That as well as, the meteor, pearl, and the rosebush next to the prison are parts of Hawthorne's emblematic writings. In this next piece of text, I will further describe these extremely intellectual symbols that Nathaniel Hawthorne used in The Scarlet Letter.
The forest is generally sought out as a place where no good happens in many stories such as Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe. It is no different in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. It is where many mysterious things reside in the wilderness. The town in the book can contrast the forest as a sanction where people are are immune from the darkness. They differ, but they also aid in conveying the bigger themes of the story. Some people might see the forest as a “happy place” for Hester and Pearl, but it should really be looked upon as a place of sin when comparing it to its foil, the town, which in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter contrasts to aid in the themes of the nature of evi, civilization versus wilderness, and identity
I believe that Hawthorne wanted The Scarlet Letter to be less about the many characters and more about how the characters are developed throughout the full length of the story. The main character, Hester Prynne, is conflicted with herself about her “sin”, her daughter Pearl. The guilt felt by Hester was derived from her time spent as a harlot. Hester also has a “good side” of herself. She “uses” her daughter as a reminder to herself to keep moving forward and keep living and keep trying to earn her redemption for her “sin” from the settlers of Boston, Massachusetts. Another character, Reverend Dimmesdale, who you will learn about later in the book, is the father of Hester Prynne’s daughter. It is never actually told to the reader that he is the father, but we finally figure it out though foreshadowing it. The Reverend is the type of person the settlers look up to and wouldn’t expect his actions. His character just lets the other characters see what they want to see. Roger Chillingworth is the husband of Hester Prynne, along with the profession of being a doctor.
The historical setting is highly significant in the novel since it is intertwined with the public’s belief and values, which shape overall themes of the novel and the main characters’ traits. The main setting of the novel takes place in New England during the middle of the seventeenth century, and the setting is the essential factor that develops the core conflicts among Hester, Dimmesdale, and the Puritan society; in fact, the historical setting itself and the society within it is what Hawthorne intends to reveal to the reader. New England in the seventeenth century was predominately organized around religious authorities, and indeed, a large portion of the population had migrated to the colony of New England with religious purposes. Therefore, the strict and religiously centered historical setting is well demonstrated through Hester’s townspeople when Hester commits adultery. The church authority and the townspeople require Hester to wear the large “A” embroidered scarlet letter, which symbolizes adultery. This act is aligned with the historica...
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, nature and Pearl are depicted as innocence and evil. Hester brings her daughter, Pearl, to live in the forest because they are not accepted by society due to the Scarlet letter. The relationship between these two is Pearl creates a bond with nature mentally since society rejects her as a product of sin. Nature is viewed in the eyes of a Puritan as a place where witches live to perform witchcraft and where darkness inhabits. However, the relationship between nature and Pearl gives her freedom and growth.
“She had wandered, without rules or guidance, in a moral wilderness: as vas, as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest” (180). Nature plays an essential part in this American Romance novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. The forest is a prominent factor symbolizing many ideas about nature’s relationship with man, as an individual and a society. The narrator does so by simply narrating about events and characters before, during and after the forest scenes. The narrator also displays the people’s feelings towards the forest and nature in general. The forest as a symbol helps the book develop the literary devices of theme, mood, and irony in The Scarlet Letter.
Present day churches can be filled with hypocrites. Some members and religious leaders go to church to look nice and appealing to someone else. They present themselves as holy and perfect and incapable of doing wrong, but they know they are far from that. As hard as they may try to look and act like the perfect being, the truth of their imperfect ways will be revealed for all to know. This is the case with the character or Arthur Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter. Dimmesdale appears incorruptible, revered and strong, but in reality he was corrupt, dishonest, and weak.