How Does Hester Prynne Use Cruelty In The Scarlet Letter
Cruelty: The Imposter of All Mankind Why does one commit a sin and instantly judge another person for committing the same offense? Seventeenth-century Massachusetts bases judgment off of a materialistic society oriented solely off of the lack of committed sins. Furthermore, the citizens of Hester’s era are quick to perceive her measures without grasping all of the information. In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, cruelty is indirectly reflected through sin and judgment of Hester Prynne's wrongdoing and
The rise of assumptions among the various crowds, tears apart what is left of Prynne and her upholding worthy to herself as a woman. She feels as though “her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and …show more content…
The torture and cruelty relates from “The mother herself - as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into her brain, that all her conceptions assumed its form - had carefully wrought out the similitude; [...creating] an analogy between the object of her affection, and the emblem of her guilt and torture” (94). The analogy created between the “object of her affection”, being her daughter, and “the emblem of her guilt and torture”, symbolizes the scarlet letter A stitched onto her wardrobe. Hester feels this way because she feels passion and love for her beautiful daughter, but is once again distraught by the scarlet letter defining not only her life but her daughter’s life forever. The fact that women during the time period of the seventeenth century are, considerably, immobilized by their lack of freedoms, regulates the attention to this disgraceful sin that Hester committed. She recognizes the relationship with the scarlet letter and how it was ultimately the best and worst thing that could have happened in her life. She wants all of the shame, guilt, and harmful comments to disappear, yet she is in love with Pearl. Cruelty is indirectly displayed in her situation because once the people saw her pregnancy appear, they treated her like an outcast because there was an unknown father, hence the
The rise of assumptions among the various crowds, tears apart what is left of Prynne and her upholding worthy to herself as a woman. She feels as though “her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and …show more content…
The torture and cruelty relates from “The mother herself - as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into her brain, that all her conceptions assumed its form - had carefully wrought out the similitude; [...creating] an analogy between the object of her affection, and the emblem of her guilt and torture” (94). The analogy created between the “object of her affection”, being her daughter, and “the emblem of her guilt and torture”, symbolizes the scarlet letter A stitched onto her wardrobe. Hester feels this way because she feels passion and love for her beautiful daughter, but is once again distraught by the scarlet letter defining not only her life but her daughter’s life forever. The fact that women during the time period of the seventeenth century are, considerably, immobilized by their lack of freedoms, regulates the attention to this disgraceful sin that Hester committed. She recognizes the relationship with the scarlet letter and how it was ultimately the best and worst thing that could have happened in her life. She wants all of the shame, guilt, and harmful comments to disappear, yet she is in love with Pearl. Cruelty is indirectly displayed in her situation because once the people saw her pregnancy appear, they treated her like an outcast because there was an unknown father, hence the