Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Critical summary of scarlet letter
The puritan ideas in the scarlet letter
The scarlet letter summary
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
“Aspiring minds must sometime sustain loss.” This quote said by Plato exemplifies the fact that in life, every individual has at least one major battle that they must overcome. Within the Puritan society setting in the novel “The Scarlet Letter”, the rules and regulation on the small town are extremely rigid. Therefore, when the reader finds out that Hester has committed adultery they see how sin was not acceptable in any form at this time. The person whom Hester committed adultery with is Reverend Dimmsdale. Pearl, the product of the sin committed, is more closely associated with Hester. On the other hand Chillingworth is more closely associated with Reverend Dimmsdale. Pearl is a living reminder everyday for Hester about the sin she committed. Chillingworth’s torturing of Dimmesdale affects both Dimmesdale and Hester. It affects Dimmesdale mentally because it helps him realize the severity of the sin and it affects Hester because she is in love with Dimmesdale. Each day that passes, Hester is reminded constantly about her sin due to Pearl. People …show more content…
Hester is directly affected as well. Before Hester committed adultery with Reverend Dimmesdale she was married to Chillingworth. When Chillingworth arrives in the town, his goal is to find out who committed this sin. He notices that Dimmesdale’s health is plummeting and decides to move in with him to nurse him back to normal health. The only reason he moved in was because he wanted to know for sure that it was Dimmesdale who was Pearl's father. While sleeping, Chillingworth looks at Dimmesdale’s chest to see why he always touches it; on his chest is the scarlet letter engraved into his skin. Now that Chillingworth knows for sure who the father is, he constantly tortures Dimmesdale mentally to get him to confess. Hester cannot bear to see this anymore because she realizes how evil Chillingworth has become and it pains her to see him treat Dimmesdale this
In “The Scarlet Letter,” the main character Hester get punished for adultery. In the beginning, she thought that her husband has died so she fell in love with Dimmesdale. However, her husband did not die and came back. Her husband, Chillingworth, later finds out that Hester has a secret lover. Therefore tried to find out who he is. At first Chillingworth does not reveal himself as Hester’s husband because she was being punished for adultery and he did not want to be ashamed. Later he tries to find out Hester’s secret lover by asking her but she will not tell him which makes him for desperate and angry. When he finds out that the secret lover is Dimmesdale, he finds out a secret about Dimmesdale.
In the story of the Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale possesses more guilt and fear than any other character portrayed within this fascinating book by Nathaniel Hawthorne. There are many examples that make this theory evident: by him putting off his confession about his act of passion, it results in a woman being punished and set apart from the rest of civilization, all while dealing with his moral obligations as a pastor and finally comparing him to the other major male character within the story. Even with his abundant knowledge of what is right and wrong, Dimmesdale attempts to rationalize his mistakes and reason to himself throughout the story that what he is doing is best for everyone. Is this a only a sign of just fear or hypocrisy
Hester and Dimmesdale’s affair goes undiscovered until Hester is pregnant and bears a child without having her husband present. As her punishment, Hester is forced to stand on the scaffold in the middle of the market place, with an A on her chest. Dimmesdale has not told a single person that he is the adulterer. He sits in the balcony with the Governor, a judge, a general, and the rest of the ministers, watching the display, without any expression or emotion. Hester and Pearl go to the Governor’s home to deliver a pair of gloves, but more importantly to inquire about the possibility of the government taking away her child. Also there with Governor Bellingham are Pastor Wilson, Reverend Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth. After Mr. Wilson asks Pearl a few questions, the Governor decides that Hester is unfit as a mother and that the child would be better off in the hands of the church. Hester begs Dimmesdale, whom she says knows everything about her and has charge of her soul, to speak for her. Therefore, he does, convincing the Governor to let Hester keep Pearl. This is Dimmesdale’s first step to becoming the moral blossom. Late at night, a few years after the previous incident, Dimmesdale takes a walk through the town. He climbs onto the scaffold and pretends to confess; though there is no one out at this time at night. Hester and Pearl, on their way home, pass Dimmesdale on the scaffold. Dimmesdale calls out to them and they join him, standing hand in hand in the darkness. Dimmesdale has begun the road to confession by acknowledging Hester and Pearl and by acting out confession. Now he feels guiltier than ever.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Mr. Dimmesdale’s greatest fear is that the townspeople will find out about his sin of adultery with Hester Prynne. Mr. Dimmesdale fears that his soul could not take the shame of such a disclosure, as he is an important moral figure in society. However, in not confessing his sin to the public, he suffers through the guilt of his sin, a pain which is exacerbated by the tortures of Roger Chillingworth. Though he consistently chooses guilt over shame, Mr. Dimmesdale goes through a much more painful experience than Hester, who endured the public shame of the scarlet letter. Mr. Dimmesdale’s guilt is much more damaging to his soul than any shame that he might have endured.
The main characters whose lies devastate the characters in the novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and Hester. Each character has once told a lie either about their character or identity. First, Dimmesdale is well-known in the community as a minister who gives sermons. But the townspeople do not know about the affair between him and Hester. He lies because he does not want to give up his reputation as a minister. The effect of him lying is that he has a guilty conscience, thinks that he “sold himself to the devil”, and ironically, people view him as a saint. (Hawthorne 193). Next, Chillingworth is an old man who is well-known in the community as the town doctor who makes medicine and takes care of people when they are sick. He lies because he does not want anyone to know his real identity. The effect of him lying is that he turns into an avenger who tries to destroy Dimmesdale. Finally, Hester is well-known in the community as the woman wearing the scarlet letter A because she commits adultery and became pregnant with a baby girl named Pearl. She lies because she does not want anyone to know about the affair between her and Dimmesdale. The effect of her lying is that her and Dimmesdale can not see each other publicly, Pearl does not have a real father to look up to each day, and Dimmesdale’s character begins to deteriorate.
Both Hester and Dimmesdale, are characters in the Scarlet Letter. They suffer with the guilt of the sin of adultery that they committed. At the time, the Puritans looked down on this type of sin. Hester and Dimmesdale can be compared and contrast in the way they handled their scarlet letter, their cowardliness, and their belief of what the afterlife is.
Hester thinks about the mercy of God herself in the story and comes to the conclusion that “man had marked [her] sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself. God, as a direct consequence of the sin [...] had given her a lovely child” (86). Society decides to punish Hester by public humiliation and eternal shame, while God decides to let nature take its own path, and blesses‒or rather curses‒Hester with her own child. Although this is a more merciful consequence, children are still a large challenge in themselves. Young children are difficult, and Pearl especially seemed to be “a demon offspring; such as, since old Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their mother’s sin” (95). Through having to raise Pearl, Hester is still being disciplined for her rash actions, but in a way that will better teach her the lessons she needs to learn from her mistake. When one observes the behaviors of both Hester and Dimmesdale, it becomes clear that Dimmesdale has failed to learn completely from his
The first theme expressed in The Scarlet Letter is that even well meaning deceptions and secrets can lead to destruction. Dimmesdale is a prime example of this; he meant well by concealing his secret relationship with Hester, however, keeping it bound up was deteriorating his health. Over the course of the book this fact is made to stand out by Dimmesdale’s changing appearance. Over the course of the novel Dimmesdale becomes more pale, and emaciated. Hester prevents herself from suffer the same fate. She is open about her sin but stays loyal to her lover by not telling who is the father of Pearl. Hester matures in the book; becomes a stronger character.
As a living reminder of Hester’s extreme sin, Pearl is her constant companion. From the beginning Pearl has always been considered as an evil child. For Hester to take care of such a demanding child, put lots of stress onto her life. Hester at times was in a state of uncontrollable pressure. “Gazing at Pearl, Hester Prynne often dropped her work upon her knees, and cried out with an agony which she would fain have hidden, but which made utterance for itself, betwixt speech and a groan, ‘O Father in heaven- if Thou art still my Father- what is this being which I have brought into the world!’” (Hawthorne, 77).
As evident in The Scarlet Letter, when a person sins they face positive and negative consequences that lead into development of their own personal character. Hester’s scarlet letter gave negative consequences in the beginning, but as Hester persevered she discovered benefits that aided in her becoming a strong woman in society. While Arthur Dimmesdale suffered the guilt and pain of his sin, his sermons benefited from his anguish, making him better than he ever had been. As an ever-constant reminder of sin, Pearl was able to show Hester the goodness in life and keep her going. In conclusion, in modern and past society there has always been sin or badness that people fall into, but it is important to get through these hard times as only then will people grow into who they are meant to be, and not remain stagnant in the pool of the “immaculate”.
Are the “bad guys” of the world always truly evil? Of course not, sometimes they're just misunderstood. A classic example comes from the movie King Kong when King Kong, a gigantic ape, gets kidnapped and put on display. Chaos ensues when he inevitably breaks free. The viewer sees him as the bad guy when really the wild ape just reacted to what happened to him. Sometimes the villain isn’t as bad as they are meant to seem. This happens in real life just as it does in a fictional life and it is exactly what happened the to one of the main characters in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Roger Chillingworth, from The Scarlet Letter, is a character that is justifiable viewed as immoral or just down right evil, but the events in which he has endured may lead the audience to sympathise with him and make him less of a villain in the novel than the author intended him to.
Throughout Hawthorne’s story, Pearl’s association with her mother, Hester, strengthens her significance in the society. Her dealings with her own mother continue to evolve into more and more interesting interactions. For example when Hester and Pearl are in conversation in the beginning of The Scarlet Letter, Hester slowly begins to see more into her own daughters unique observations. Apparently Pearl, still a young child, can identify Hester’s significant relationship between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. Pearl exclaims “I Have No Heavenly Father” (Hawthorne VI), in response to Hester and her conversation regarding Pearl’s very origin. Pearl constantly reminds Hester of her sin but at the same time Pearl also brings Hester joy which shows Hester’s new thinking of how no one can be purely evil. The society looks upon Pearl’s intuitivenes...
The elders were going to dish out a horrible punishment to Hester, instead, the gave her the scarlet letter to wear upon her bosom. This was still a terrible punishment; it brought great shame on Hester for seven years, but the worst part is that little Pearl knows nothing about her father and what her mother did until the end of the book when Hester tells Pearl in the forest that Dimmesdale is her father. Hester is almost forced to leave the community because of the act of adultery that she and Dimmesdale committed. If Dimmesdale would have told the community of his sin, then he would have been removed from the priesthood, as well as the community. The elders show no mercy when it comes to removing sin in their
“Hold up your chin there is always light at the end of the tunnel,” one might comment to a friend when they are stuck in a dilemma. Hester Prynne, commits adultery in the era of strict Puritans and sin, especially adultery, not being tolerable. Hawthorne’s rose bush in The Scarlet Letter not only exemplifies hope in the midst of calamity, but also incorporates a more in depth meaning to it; The people who surround Hester pry into her life not only because of the exquisite, luring “A” she created to sew on her bosom to serve as her punishment, but the way Hester carries herself with dignity.
In the events of the Scarlet Letter, more and more incidents keep occurring that unravel the love stories between the characters. Hester and Chillingworth’s paths cross as one another confides their true feelings towards each other. Hester confesses that she is on the verge of exposing Chillingworth’ true identity and that he needs to stop harming the minister while treating him. This sparks an argument between the two as they both try to blame themselves for the sins they have committed and the people they have become. The community has begun to accept Hester for her actions as she provides numerous aids for the society. As the story goes along, Pearl’s inquisitive mind begins to process her mother’s scarlet letter to the observances of how