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The symbolic meaning in the scarlet letter
The symbolic meaning of the scarlet letter
The symbolic meaning in the scarlet letter
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In his piece, The Scarlet Letter and Revolutions Abroad, Larry J. Reynolds aims to link Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, to historical revolutions both past and present. He explains that one can draw parallels between the story and revolutions by examining the structure, themes, setting, language, as well as characterization within the story. As to why these parallels are present, Reynolds doesn’t give much explanation but justifies his claim by saying the revolutions and disrupts abroad were constantly on Hawthorne’s mind.
Reynold’s begins the piece explaining why revolution had been absent in most American literature of the day. Despite the first couple pages not seeming relevant, at least to me, Reynolds does plant his first idea
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He explains that the scaffold that Hester is sentenced to stand upon as punishment is meant to be a comparison to the famous weapon in the French Revolution, the guillotine. Reynolds points out that it was custom in Puritan New England to refer to such places as to where Hester stood as the gallows, not scaffolds. “[…] the central setting of the novel, the scaffold, is, I believe, an historical inaccuracy intentionally used by Hawthorne to develop the theme of revolution” (619). Here he is saying that Hawthorne purposely misused the term in order to spur up themes of revolution. Although he fails to mention Hawthorne’s motive in doing so, it does credibly show the reader that there are possible and deliberate connections made between the French Revolution and The Scarlet …show more content…
He proposes that the author appears unsympathetic toward characters like Hester or Dimmesdale when they embody the ideals of a revolution. He backs this up by explaining that ideas of revolution, bloodshed and everything else it accompanies, was repulsive to Hawthorne, and likewise the author of the Custom House. He calls to light important examples of when the Custom House author portrayed a character in a negative light, in accompany with a situation where that character was seen to be emulating certain revolutionary ideals. Reynolds directly states, “Specifically, when Hester and Arthur battle to maintain or regain their rightful place in the social or spiritual order the narrator sympathizes with them; when they become revolutionary instead and attempt to overthrow an establish order, he becomes unsympathetic” (625). He makes this claim in connection with the above mentioned scaffold. This revolutionary device is something that is meant to degrade and humiliate Hester, but instead, given the author’s negative feelings towards these revolutionary ideals, he uses it as a physical and metaphorical way to elevate Hester. The connection is further validated by the background knowledge Reynolds provides. Not just in this example, but throughout the piece, Reynolds gives the reader an insight into how Hawthorne was influenced by these ideals. He mentions how
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.
Beginning with the very first words of The Scarlet Letter the reader is thrust into a bleak and unforgiving setting. “A thong of bearded men, in sad-colored garments,” that are said to be “intermixed with women,” come off as overpowering and all-encompassing; Hawthorne quickly and clearly establishes who will be holding the power in this story: the males (Hawthorne 45). And he goes even further with his use of imagery, painting an even more vivid picture in the reader’s mind. One imagines a sea of drab grays and browns, further reinforcing the unwelcoming feeling this atmosphere seems to inheren...
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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 17th century. The novel addresses the moral dilemmas of personal responsibility in the lives of its characters. With literary techniques Hawthorne works into his romanticized fiction a place of special meaning for nature. He uses the rhetorical skills of Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne throughout the novel to help reveal the true colors of his characters and rhetorical devices such as figurative language as in the personification of nature to give his work a strong narrative voice.
Authors use character development to show how a person can change. Through a descriptive portrayal of a charter and their development they become real to the reader. A well-developed character stirs up emotions in the reader making for a powerful story. A person can change for better or worse and Nathaniel Hawthorne shows this thru the character development of Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter has a very wide cast of characters, but settles upon three distinct main ones. These three characters are all very different, but still suffer from the same internal conflict regarding their relationships with one another. One theme can be associated with each individual character, but a single trait is common among all three. Love, fear, and revenge are all primary themes present in The Scarlet Letter, but no other emotion is as prevalent to the characters’ developments than their guilt. These themes give us a sense of how different, but also how similar, these characters are.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Scarlet Letter”. American Literature: Volume One. Ed. William E. Cain. New York: Pearson, 2004. 809-813. Print
5. The Scarlet Letter portrays the radical role of religion within the early stages of America. Nathaniel Hawthorne is essentially a transcendental whistleblower in society, depicting the absurdity and irrationality of religion through Hester Prynne’s extreme retribution from her congregation and clergymen.
“Hester Prynne passed through this portion of her ordeal, and came to a sort of scaffold (51),” Hawthorne tells in the opening seen of the novel, The Scarlet Letter. The scaffold is a place for punishment. “This scaffold constituted a portion of a penal machine, which now, for two or three generations past, has been merely historical and traditionary among us, but was held, in the old time, to be as effectual an agent in the promotion of good citizenship, as ever was the guillotine,” Hawthorne states in explaining the scaffolds use. The scaffold had wooden steps leading on to it. The steps of the scaffold became the walk of death for many people before they were beheaded. A balcony or open gallery stood over the platform and was attached to the meetinghouse. During Hester’s punishment, the ministers and Governor sat in the gallery in order to question her. The scaffold was located at the “western extremity” of the market place, near the church. The scaffold was a raised platform made of wood and iron. Men and women who sinned would be forced on the scaffold, either for beheading or, in Hester’s case, extreme embarrassment. The scaffold appears in the book three times, during three major scenes. The scenes are placed equally apart in the book, one at the beginning, in the middle and in the final scene at the end.
ANALYSIS OF PLOT STRUCTURE The Scarlet Letter is a unified, masterfully written novel. It is structured around three crucial scaffold scenes and three major characters that are all related. The story is about Hester Prynne, who is given a scarlet letter to wear as a symbol of her adultery. Her life is closely tied to two men, Roger Chillingworth, her husband, and Arthur Dimmesdale, her minister and the father of her child.
The Scarlet Letter, a classic American novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, contains a plot that follows the controversial life of Hester Prynne, the main protagonist of the story. Set in the mid 1600’s in Boston, Massachusetts, it represented the Puritan society and its ideals at that time. Its rich plot has enticed and enraptured readers for many years, while Historical elements have allowed readers to analyze and understand the content better. The Scarlet Letter is a piece of historical fiction that contains a real representation of the period in which it is set in and is mostly historically accurate, barring a few minor inaccuracies.
The story setting is the impetus in The Scarlet Letter because New England during the mid- 17th century had unique customs and values that impelled conflicts and character transformations. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne accentuates certain settings within New England to portray the strictness and hardships in the town, while he counters with the forest and the isolated cottage settings. Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter portrays a strict, rigid Puritan town through utilizing both the physical and historical settings of the time period.
Hawthorne’s use of symbols and detailed explanations help show how people’s actions ripple across affecting everyone and everything in their life. From the beginning of the novel Hawthorne engaged in the actions of young Hester Prynne and how it ruined not only her life but also made it more difficult for that of Pearl’s and caused the eventual deaths of her lover, Dimmsdale and ex-husband, Chillingworth.
In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne expresses his opinions on how society should behave through the Romantic idea that rebelling against society’s harsh expectations leads to one becoming a more individual person. In the very beginning, the main character, Hester Prynne, is publicly shamed and punished by her society for committing the crime of adultery. The most significant part of her punishment is that she has to wear the letter ‘A’ on her chest (48-51). Hester embroiders her ‘A’ and seems to treat it less as a punishment and more as an opportunity to be a part of society through selling her elaborate needlework (75-76), but she explains that New England, “had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment,” (74).
The Scarlet Letter is a fictional novel that begins with an introductory passage titled ‘The Custom-House’. This passage gives a historical background of the novel and conveys the narrator’s purpose for writing about the legend of Hester Prynne even though the narrator envisions his ancestors criticizing him and calling him a “degenerate” because his career was not “glorifying God”, which is very typical of the strict, moralistic Puritans. Also, although Hawthorne is a Romantic writer, he incorporates properties of Realism into his novel by not idealizing the characters and by representing them in a more authentic manner. He does this by using very formal dialogue common to the harsh Puritan society of the seventeenth century and reflecting their ideals through this dialogue. The Puritans held somewhat similar views as the Transcendentalists in that they believed in the unity of God and the world and saw signs and symbols in human events, such as when the citizens related the meteo...