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The interpretation of “the scarlet letter”
Moralityin the scarlet letter
Scarlet letter by nathaniel hawthorne characterization
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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. Hester Prynne is a strong, independent, and stubborn individual who surrenders to hypocrisy throughout The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne accepts the consequences to her action and wears her scarlet letter with pride and envy from the members of her society. However, there is a psychological blockage to Hester’s mind that she has no indeed committed a sin. In the prison, defending her actions against committing... ... middle of paper ... ...veral bodies in The Scarlet Letter. Though Hester, Chillingworth, Dimmesdale, and the Puritan Society, are filled with hypocrisy, it not only impacts the life of these people, but it also affects the innocent. Pearl, Hester and Dimmesdale daughter, was affected by her parent’s hypocrisy. She was looked upon as an outcast like her mother. Pearl’s interpretations of her mother’s sin taught of how different individuals deal with their sin and guilt. Pearl became Hawthorne’s voice to always be true to yourself and value appearances. Works Cited "Hypocrisy | Define Hypocrisy at Dictionary.com." Dictionary.com | Free Online Dictionary for English Definitions. Web. 31 Mar. 2011. . http://content.loudlit.org/audio/ScarletLetter/pages/17_04_ScarletLetter.htm http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/scarletletter/3/
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
Hester Prynne has a fairly unconventional approach to her “sin.” She does not feel ashamed of her wrong and therefore does not feel guilt as others in The Scarlet Letter do. She is marked with a large “A” for her sin of adultery and embraces this by embroidering the letter. "And never had ...
Hester Prynne was the main character in the Scarlet Letter. Hester sin was committing adultery with minister Arthur Dimmsdale. Birthing a child named Pearl of pure sin. By committing her sin they punished her. “‘If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer!" (98 ) The community made her stand on the scaffold for public humiliation. Wearing the letter “A” on her garments meaning Adultery as another punishment. The community shunned Hester and Pearl looking at them as satans work. Hester believes that she should remain in Boston since that were her crime of adultery was committed making it as a reminder to herself what shes have done. Also staying to protect Dimmesdale from Chillingworth.
The Scarlet Letter is a novel about a Puritan woman who has committed adultery and must pay for her sin by wearing a scarlet “A'; on her bosom. The woman, Hester Prynne, must struggle through everyday life with the guilt of her sin. The novel is also about the suffering that is endured by not admitting to one’s wrongs. Reverend Mister Dimmesdale learns that secrecy only makes the guilt increase. Nathaniel Hawthorne is trying to display how guilt is the everlasting payment for sinful actions. The theme of guilt as reparation for sin in The Scarlet Letter is revealed through Nathaniel Hawthorne’s use of northeastern, colonial settings, various conflicts, and characters that must live with guilt for the sins they have committed.
The scarlet letter, though believed to symbolize a multitude of purposes, has afflicted Hester to a certain extent – enough to force her to realize that she has committed a sin according to society. Although Hester is perceived in a more positive light, she became noticeably cold and withdrawn from the Puritan society after her banishment. After the influence ...
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter centers around a young woman named Hester Prynne, an adulteress in a stringent Puritan community. After Hester conceives a child through her sin and the townspeople learn that she had committed adultery, they treat her as an outcast and force her to wear a “scarlet letter” to mark her shame. Even when under pressure, she refuses to tell who her child’s father is. Even though her punishment did not require that she stay in the community, Hester chooses to remain there in an attempt to cleanse herself from her transgression. Despite all of the pain this caused her, she was still able to show great strength. Hester Prynne’s isolation in her community as a result of her sin brings the reader’s attention to her dignity and inner strength, her kindness, and her independent nature.
At first, the crowd shares a common apathy for Hester: “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die” (46). The community’s opinion starkly shifts from viewing Hester as the guilt-ridden adulterer standing on the scaffold to an exemplary citizen of Boston. After her rehabilitation, “they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since” (147). Not only do the Puritans see the scarlet differently, the actual significance of the scarlet letter changes from religion to secularism. Hawthorne uses this alteration in the scarlet letter’s symbolism to demonstrate that secular justice has power even over violations of religious code. Women, who suffered tribulations similar to Hester’s, seek comfort and advice from her; they yearn to undergo their own rehabilitation in hopes of one day becoming part of a society in which they are not subject to such cruel condemnation:
The Scarlet Letter is a literary work that is the subject of Nathaniel Hawthorne because it provides many good aspects, whether Hester Prynne feelings of enchantment with the Reverend Dimmesdale causing sin and adultery "with Hester's sin until the birth, both babies less that she was married by her being sentenced to sign A letter to the Red that stands the word Adultery is to expose the chest and stood in front of the people in the city, has been a shame. She accepted with dignity, with a firm penalty
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, a female protagonist named Hester Prynne is subjected to public humiliation and alienation from the Puritan society because she committed adultery. This “sinful” act is further enhanced when her husband, Roger Chillingworth, comes to Boston, and Hester is forced to keep the secret identities of her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, and her husband concealed from the community. Over the course of her seven-year journey, she becomes more independent, more free, and a model of feministic power to the Freudian society that had once marked her bosom with the letter “A” to shame her. Hawthorne depicts the contrasting views of the patriarchal Puritan society, which is characterized by the town and Dimmesdale against
Hester Prynne's guilt is the result of her committing adultery, which has a significant effect on her life. Hester is publicly seen with the scarlet letter when she first emerges out of the cold dark prison. "It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity and enclosing her in a sphere by herself" (49). The spell that is mentioned is the scarlet letter, "so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom" (49). The scarlet letter is what isolates her from everyone else because it symbolizes sin. Hester is in her very own sphere, where her sin affects her livelihood and has completely cut her off from the world. Her entrance into the sphere marks the beginning of her guilt and it occurs when she is in the prison after her first exposure to the crowd. The prison marks the beginning of a new life for Hester, a life full of guilt and seclusion. Her problem is that her shame is slowly surfacing while she faces the crowd realizing that she has been stripped of all her pride and everything that was important to her in the past. The lasting effect of Hester's sin is the shame that she now embodies due to her committing adultery. The shame that is ass...
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”(Romans 3:23). Since the beginning of time guilt has existed, and in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, guilt illustrates itself through adultery involving Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale resided in New England during The Puritan Age and committed adultery while Hester’s husband was out of town. Hester’s sin did not go unnoticed, as her baby illuminated the situation. While Hester’s mister hid in the shadows, she was branded with a scarlet letter A for adultery as punishment for her sin. The scarlet letter was more than a piece of cloth over her chest; it was reminder to everyone around about Mrs. Prynne’s actions. Hawthorne uses biblical and spiritual allusions to argue that guilt causes individuals to change their lifestyles.
Hester Prynne committed a crime so severe that it changed her life into coils of torment and defeat. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester is publicly recognized as an adulteress and expelled from society. Alongside the theme of isolation, the scarlet letter, or symbol of sin, is meant to shame Hester but instead transforms her from a woman of ordinary living into a stronger person.
The portrayal of Hester Prynne in the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, has been highly criticized, and many debate upon the angelic or sinful light that Hester Prynne represents. The author and critic, D.H. Lawrence, focuses on Hester’s sin in his critical essay, where Lawrence targets her, not as the victim, but as an ultimate sinner as she should be viewed, based on traditional Puritan values. Lawrence achieves his purpose that Hester should be viewed in a sinful light through his bullet-like syntax, negative and hateful diction, and his critical and disapproving tone.
As Hester wears the Scarlet Letter the people around her label her as well as her changing for her society around her in order to fit in. Hester Prynne has committed the sin of adultery, which in her society she needs to wear a Scarlet Letter as a punishment. Hester was put in front of her community and is exploited to what she is. “I charge… speak out the name of thy fellow sinner… though he were to step down from a high place.” (Hawthorne 77) Because she is a sinner, and people want her to confess her sin she goes against them and refuses to speak. When she does not speak, many people in the society thinks that she should be
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.