More handpicked essays just for you.
Discuss Hawthorne‟s narrative technique in “The scarlet letter”
Nathaniel Hawthorne essay
Nathaniel Hawthorne essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, people who commit a crime must face public humiliation by being forced to stand upon a scaffold. One of these people was Hester Prynne who commits adultery and was forced upon the scaffold. Throughout the book, there are three scenes where after standing on the scaffold, the person would feel relieved. The scaffold is a representation of freedom because when someone is standing on it they will be free of their sin. In the book, Hester is the first person who Hawthorne writes about to stand on the scaffold and face public humiliation. Hester had to do this because she confessed to having an affair with Arthur Dimmesdale. After a few days Hester is forced onto a scaffold for everyone to see
In the first scaffold scene Hester Prynne is depicted standing alone while clutching her baby. She has been sentenced to the scaffold for three hours to face public condemnation. In the Puritan society, where this novel is set, public shame is a source of entertainment. On this occasion the townspeople are present to watch the judgment of Hester. As the townspeople are ridiculing her, the narrator is praising Hester for her untamed but lady like beauty (60-61). The narrator goes so far as to compare her to “Divine Maternity” or Mother Mary, the ideal woman, the woman that is looked highly upon by the whole Puritan society (63). However, the conditions are set up to show the change in Hester due to isolation and discredit of the Puritan society. Throughout this scene the Puritans are condemning Hester for her sin as the narrator is condemning the Puritans for their severity.
Hester, the wearer of the scarlet letter, is now facing public humiliation upon the scaffold in front of the whole community. Hester spots a man, a stranger standing in the crowd. Is he really a stranger? The way Hester and the man exchange looks, there's evidently a connection between them. Hawthorne uses figurative language devices to show the emotions the stranger has when he spots Hester. While standing on the scaffold, Hester emulates the sin that she committed and the horror that this stranger is feeling when he shows up. Hester’s life is now converging her new life, advancing the plot through the meeting of her husband upon standing at the podium. This critical event in Hester’s life advances the plot by introducing her husband, as we later learn is Roger chillingworth, creating a new conflicts.
A few years later the event is again repeated. It is very similar to the
the height of a mans shoulders above the street . . . . The unhappy culprit
That scaffold holds more importance than just somewhere to condemn prisoners. It is the one place where Dimmesdale felt liberated to say anything he wishes. In Puritan culture, the scaffold is used to humiliate and chastise prisoners, be it witches at the stake, thieves in the stocks, or a murderer hanging from the gallows. In The Scarlet Letter, the scaffold was viewed more as a place of judgment. “Meagre ... was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for, from such bystanders, at the scaffold.” (p. 63) Indeed, it was used for castigation, but it was also a place of trial: Hester’s trial was held at the scaffold. Standing upon the platform opens oneself to God and to the world. “They stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another.” (p. 186) Being on the scaffold puts oneself in a feeling of spiritual nakedness- where you feel exposed to God, but cleansed. It was the one place where Dimmesdale could find complete reconciliation.
Not only has Hester changed physically but she has also changed emotionally and cognitively. In chapter two, we are introduced to defiant Hester, standing on the scaffold as punishment for her sins. Hawthorne states “…he laid his right upon the shoulder of a young woman whom he thus drew forward, until, on the threshold of the prison-door, she repelled him by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character…” (9). Hawthorne describes Hester’s actions as natural dignity and forceful to convey her defiance and reluctance to the Puritan society and culture. In contrast, Hester, after seven years of suffering and loneliness with her humanity stripped from
In Nathaniel Hawthorne?s The Scarlet Letter, the Puritans constantly look down upon sinners like Hester Prynne, both literally and symbolically. The use of the three scaffold scenes throughout the course of the novel proved to be an effective method in proving this theory and showing how Puritan society differs from that of today?s.
She lost all her fiery passion on the scaffold, by which society mocked and watched and she was punished for the sins she committed. The scaffold became the essence of sin and hatred for Hester, Hawthorne created the meaning of this by stating things like the scaffold was “the very ideal of ignominy [and] was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron”. Hester makes her transformation on this scaffold and although she is silent ad still filled with anger, she will never be the same due pain she felt on that scaffold. Through society's punishments and harsh bias, Hester is stripped of all passion and this is continually argued with her change as she wears the scarlet letter. In the beginning, Hester tries to cover it up, but the burn of those eyes who look upon her still stand. ONce in the free spirit environment of the forest and she takes the scarlet A off she becomes happy and passionate once again that even her own daughter doesn’t recognize
The first scaffold scene takes place at the very beginning of the story. In this particular scene, Hester has moments before walked from the prison door carrying her baby and donning the scarlet letter, which stands for adultery. She must make this procession in front of the entire town. After the march, Hester is forced to stand alone on the scaffold until an hour past noon.
Chapter 5 of the book, “Hester at Her Needle” gives Hester’s account on her days after she is released from prison. It is a very sunny day which is usually supposed to represent a happy setting with a bright future ahead. However Hester automatically thinks that the sunlight is specifically there to reveal the scarlet letter that is sewn onto the chest of her dress. The steps that she takes out of the prison represent the steps that she will take to her new life that is full of loneliness and scorn. Her future is very grim-being cut off from the townspeople as well as from a normal life. Hawthorne goes on to describe here that “To-morrow would bring its own trial with it; so would the next day, and so would the next; each its own trial, and yet the very same that was now so unutterably grievous to be born...
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, symbolsim is constantly present in the actual scarlet letter “A” as it is viewed as a symbol of sin and the gradally changes its meanign, guilt is also a mejore symbol, and Pearl’s role in this novel is symbolic as well. The Scarlet Letter includes many profound and crucial symbols. these devices of symbolism are best portayed in the novel, most noticably through the letter “A” best exemplifies the changes in the symbolic meaning throughout the novel.
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
Hawthorne has perfectly structured The Scarlet Letter around three scaffold scenes. At the first one, located in the very beginning of the novel, Hester openly confesses her sin of adultery in the light of day while Dimmesdale and Chillingworth look on from the crowd that has gathered.
In the beginning of the book, Hawthorne paints the picture of a female named Hester who has sinned. Not only is she publicly ostracized for having an affair while unmarried, but her major repercussion, her daughter, receives her punishment as well because she derives directly from sin. It is through these tribulations that Hawthorne exemplifies Hester and Pearl, no matter how young, as strong, independent females. These characteristics were not easily applied to females during this time. Hawthorne’s ability to show Hester collected and under control to the crowd, although she may have felt otherwise inside, while she exits the prison and while she is on the scaffold, exhibits her as a strong woman. The fact that Hester exits the prison “by an action marked with natural dignity and force of character, and stepped into the open air, as if by her own free will”, and the fact that while on the scaffold, under pressure, Hester refuses to give the name of the father of her child, also proves her strength and compassion. She states, “Never!....It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well
During the colonial period in what is now the East Coast, Puritans lived strict lives. Like other cultures, the Puritans had scaffolds in the center of their small town for special events, mainly for public punishment. In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, there is an importance to the scaffold, both in terms of who is on it and when the scene occurs. In total, there are three main scaffold scenes, two by day and one by night. The painting held portray the differences in the three scenes and how the symbolism of the scarlet letter has developed throughout the plot.