Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel tells the story of a young Puritan woman who is ostracized from the community because of her sin. An example of early American Literature, Hawthorne uses color to symbolize emotions and imagery. The Scarlet Letter opens with a young woman, Hester Prynne, being ushered from the community jail to the town’s scaffold wearing a scarlet “A” on her chest. Hester is placed on exhibition, before the entire town, and is forced to stand on a platform to be judged for her sin of adultery. When she is on the scaffold she is asked to reveal the name of her child’s father but she refuses. Hester spots her thought to be dead husband by the scaffold. Back in the community prison, Hester is visited by her husband and he vows to find out who the child’s father is and take revenge on the man. He then makes Hester promise to never reveal his identity and introduces himself to the townspeople as a physician named Roger Chillingworth. Hester and her daughter Pearl move to the outskirts of Boston and becomes a seamstress to provide for herself and Pearl. Her daughter grows int...
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.
Hester Prynne, the protagonist in the book The Scarlet Letter, has committed the sin of adultery, but learned to use that mistake as a form of strength. Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, sent her to America and was supposed to follow her, but never arrived in Boston. While Hester was waiting on Chillingworth, she had an affair with the town minister, Dimmesdale. As a result, Hester gave birth to a beautiful daughter and was forced to wear the scarlet
Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, has an extremely elaborate, and well-depicted vocabulary. Many of his sentences and paragraphs tend to be very verbose, but at the same time very helpful in giving the reader an accurate representation of the exactly how Chillingworth reacts when he first sees Hester. Within the passage on page sixty-seven Hawthorne is giving an intricate description of Chillingworth’s reaction when he first sees Hester after she is released from prison. With his usage of both syntax and imagery throughout this passage, he most effectively illustrates his vision of Chillingworth. Hawthorne gives us quite a bit of description within this passage, which allows us to see an intellectual side of Chillingworth. Generally people are intellectual or religious, the big bang vs. Genesis. Chillingworth is portrayed as intellectual, which conflicts with the Puritan views of religion.
The Scarlet Letter starts off by throwing Hester Prynne into drama after being convicted for adultery in a Puritan area. Traveling from Europe to America causes complications in her travel which also then separates her from her husband, Roger Chillingworth for about three years. Due to the separation, Hester has an affair with an unknown lover resulting in having a child. Ironically, her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, is a Reverend belonging to their church who also is part of the superiors punishing the adulterer. No matter how many punishments are administered to Hester, her reactions are not changed. Through various punishments, Hester Prynne embraces her sin by embroidering a scarlet letter “A” onto her breast. However, she is also traumatized deep within from everything she’s been through. Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts this story of sin by using rhetorical devices such as allusion, alliteration and symbolism.
The main point of Scarlet letter is how Hester Prynne one of the main characters have to wear a scarlet A to Mark her sinning. While the men her heart belongs to Arthur Dimmesdale stay quiet and agonize with guilt, while her husband Roger Chillingworth works towards revenge. The story takes place in the mid 17th century Puritan community of Boston. The theme of this story is mainly guilt and frustration. Other characters of the story are governor Richard Bellingham was the symbol of authority the other character is pearl the daughter of Hester and Arthur.
Hawthorne manages to create many metaphors within his novel The Scarlet Letter. The rose bush outside the prison door, the black man, and the scaffold are three metaphors. Perhaps the most important metaphor would be the scaffold, which plays a great role throughout the entire story. The three scaffold scenes which Hawthorne incorporated into The Scarlet Letter contain a great deal of significance and importance the plot. Each scene brings a different aspect of the main characters, the crowd or more minor characters, and what truth or punishment is being brought forth.
The Scarlet Letter is a novel revolving around a woman who committed the sin of adultery in a small Puritan town in seventeenth-century Boston. Hester Prynne, the adulteress, refuses to reveal her lover’s name, and as a result is forced to wear a large, red "A" on her bosom. This is to tell everyone of her sin. Hester is also forced to live isolated with her daughter, Pearl, who is the result of her sin. Meanwhile, the small Puritan town remains very devoted to and very proud of their young minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. What they do not know is that it is Dimmesdale who is Hester’s Lover and Pearl’s father. The fact that Dimmesdale keeps his sin a secret is tearing him up, both physically and emotionally. To complicate matters even more, Hester’s old and slightly deformed husband is back. He had stayed in England for quite a while allowing Hester to settle into their new home.
Hester. On the night of Arthur Dimmesdale vigil, he sees a red A in the
Nathaniel Hawthorne isn't noted for perfecting any famous literary style, for writing multiple best sellers, or even for contributing largely to classic American literature. His only real claim to fame is The Scarlet Letter: a novel that was originally only meant to be yet another Hawthorne short story. Because of this, it actually possesses many short story characteristics. "It is simpler and more complete than his other novels." (James 285) It also has an excellent plot backed by an expert use of literary techniques. One technique Hawthorne used was borrowed solely from drama: the use of the aside. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale delivers an aside in the midst of the action in chapter three, incorporating the reader into his personal thoughts and feelings directly. Many other things in The Scarlet Letter weren't so direct, though. Typically, Hawthorne left the reader implying events by being vague and not answering posed questions. An example of this technique is through the women's discussion about Hester Prynne in chapter one. But, among all of his techniques used in The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne truly mastered only one. He refined the art of symbolism. Symbolism is found throughout all of The Scarlet Letter. Nearly every person or object is symbolic of some other thing or idea. The scarlet letter, the black glove Dimmesdale leaves on the scaffold, and the scaffold itself all have deeper significance. This makes the theme of The Scarlet Letter even more ever-present. It aids in illustrating the true intolerance and hypocrisy of Puritan customs.
Hawthorne takes the theme and symbolizes the different characters as a part of nature. He also uses imagery to show the different relationships between the characters. He achieves this by showing the dramatic differences between good and evil through light, darkness and shadows being cast upon the earth. When he does this, he draws the reader in and lets them visualize the human nature of struggling lovers.
Symbolism plays an important role in the Scarlet Letter. The scarlet "A" is used to represent sin and anguish along with happiness. The "A" has different meanings to people other than what was originally intended. The scaffold is used as a place of repentance and judgment by God. Pearl is another major symbol used as a reminder of the scarlet letter.
Motifs and themes work together to help develop a story. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, illustrates these techniques. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, a young woman and the mother of Pearl, is punished for her crime of adultery. Roger Chillingworth, her former husband who acts as the town doctor, promises himself to figure out who the other sinner is and to punish them, so Hester does not have to face the punishment alone. Arthur Dimmesdale, the young priest and Hester's partner in crime, struggles both with living with the guilt of not publicly confessing his sin and enduring his declining health, due to Roger Chillingworth's treatments. In the end, Dimmesdale publicly confesses he is Pearl's father, and dies
Since she has worn this letter, she now has a label on her that she is
The Scarlet Letter is a romance written by Nathaniel Hawthorne that takes place in the Puritan Community in Boston, Massachusetts during the 17th century. It tells the story of Hester Prynne, who commits the sin of adultery with the minister of the church, Reverend Dimmesdale, and conceives a baby girl, Pearl. Hester's husband, Roger Chillingworth, returns and seeks revenge. As Pearl grows up, her mother learns how to deal with the scarlet letter of shame and Dimmesdale feels guilt. When they decide to run away, Dimmesdale confesses his sin in public and he dies. The story end with the death of Chillingworth and all his belongings and property go to little Pearl. Pearl grows up and probably gets married and Hester becomes a mother for all women in need.
A symbol relies on imagery to capture influential ideas. Symbols have the ability to captivate a population, negatively or positively, reflecting a community’s ideals and attitude towards the representation. When the scarlet letter is first laid upon Hester’s bosom, it has an extremely negative connotation within her community, which is intended to represent her sin. As the plot progresses, the circumstances and the community in which the novel takes place evolves and the societal attitudes change. With the community’s development, the meaning of the embroidered letter changes to reflect society’s different expectations and values. This evolution demonstrates how the power of the symbol is largely dependent on people’s perception of the token and what they believe its meaning is. The transformation of the Puritan community’s viewpoint during the story reveals the flaws and fragility of Puritanism. Given the religion’s foundation stemming from their disapproval of change in their church in Europe, this is particularly ironic. Hawthorne uses the tri-stage meaning of the scarlet letter as a means to demonstrate the