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The Scarlet Letter is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This essay discusses how Hester is a victim of her social pressure. She was punished for something she did to achieve her dream of having someone that loves her. Hester committed adultery with minister Dimmesdale and had a child with him, Pearl. Her punishment was to stand on the scaffold with her child and wear the letter A on her breast as a sign of her “crime”. Due to the strictures of the puritan society, Hester Prynne suffers from public shaming. She almost lost her only child, and was not able to openly love who she wanted.…
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Nathaniel Hawthorne continues to keep me on my toes in these chapters of the The Scarlet Letter. I found multiple themes and symbols that Hawthorne embodied in these chapters- mainly sin and effect, irony, and of course; the scarlet letter.…
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In the beginning of this book we meet Hester Prynne, a beautiful young mother making her way from prison through a crowd of displeased Puritans. She finds herself displayed like a circus animal, amongst a silent and unforgiving crowd, on a scaffold commonly used for executions. She has a brilliantly embroidered Scarlet Letter “A” attached to her bosom, a curious punishment for the sin of adultery. The crowd, with the exception of that one young maiden, seems to think she deserved much more than a simple letter attached to her clothes. Death is the proper punishment for a scandal of this proportion! The Scarlet…
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Roger Chillingworth stated this to Hester, “his spirit lacks the strength that could have borne up, as thine has, beneath a burden like thy scarlet letter” (343). Dimmesdale could preach the consequences of sin, but could neither keep himself from sinning nor own up to his sin. When Hester was put onto the scaffold, Dimmesdale spoke to her directly, as he was directed to do by the magistrates, in an effort to force her to speak of her sinner, and said, “Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him...though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life...Thy silence ...compel him...to add hypocrisy to sin?” (133). Dimmesdale argued that if her lover were to step down from his high status onto the scaffold beside Hester, it would be better than for him to hide his sin for eternity. Yet, Dimmesdale, the sinner, did not do this. Lastly, Dimmesdale stated when meeting with Hester, “I should long ago have thrown off these garments of mock holiness, and have shown myself to mankind as they will see me at the judgment-seat. Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret!” (383-385) and ultimately expressed to her…
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He is a good man, but he is fearful of ruining his image by letting out his guilty secret. “Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him except it tempt him-yea, compel him, as it were- to add hypocrisy to sin?” (Hawthorne 47) This quote was a demand from Dimmesdale to Hester while she is on the scaffold being integrated to speak the guilty name of the one who accompanied her with the sin. Although, he is pleading to Hester to give the name of her fellow sinner, in reality he doesn’t really want her to reveal his identity. Remaining silent about the sin committed with Prynne and then giving the consequences for the silencer shows another form of hypocrisy from Dimmensdale. The people of the puritan society also play a hypocritical…
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In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne the reader gains insight into the background and personalities of the characters through Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale. These two characters show us the evil in the novel, the unfolding sin, and add a special romance to the novel…
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Arthur Dimmesdale has committed a sin that is heavily frowned upon throughout his community, though; nobody in the community knows what that sin is besides Hester Prynne. Dimmesdale is the minister of the community and he has committed the sin of adultery, partaking in an affair with Hester Prynne while she long waited for her Husband to arrive at Boston. Dimmesdale, being a religious leader, goes through the struggle for salvation throughout the novel because the action of his sin that he has committed is killing his conscious.…
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The prison door is very dark in comparison to the rose bush next to it that “by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of the gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it”(34). The dark prison door is representative of the unrelenting Puritan laws that are in place at the time.The bright rose bush, an opposite of the door, represents forgiveness and decency that are still somewhat present; no matter what the circumstances are, there is always room for hope, and the rose bush is that hope. The most renowned symbol in Hawthorne’s book is the scarlet letter on Hester’s chest. As punishment for having an illegitimate child, Hester Prynne is not executed, the standard of the time, but is forced to wear a red letter “A” on her chest that represents adultery. A greater punishment than any prison sentence, the scarlet letter has “the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity , and inclosing her in a sphere by herself”(37). The contrasting colors of red and black on Hester’s dress show how the “A” has changed her literally and psychologically. The people to the right of Hester are talking about Hester and making appalling faces. The prison door was close to the marketplace, where she was going, but it seemed like an…
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Dimmesdale experiences a world of hurt inflicted by Chillingworth, and Hester is aware of it and doesn’t try to stop it. Consequently, the reader is unsure if there is still a connection between Hester and Dimmesdale. On the other hand, the two are linked by “... the iron link of mutual crime, which neither he nor she could break. Like all other ties, it brought along with it its obligations” (Hawthorne, 145). Dimmesdale helped Hester in numerous ways, yet she watches him face seven years of emotional and physical torture and pain and failed to return the favor. Dimmesdale was miserable after each sermon because his true thoughts and feelings could not be shared and expressed to the public. Hester differed in how she was serene through her isolation. Hester’s lack of action demonstrates how her personality became…
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Firstly, the main character Hester Prynne was caught in the act of adultery, and produced a child from it, which she named Pearl. The father of said child is Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Throughout the book, Dimmesdale’s relationship with Hester was kept under secret but discreetly implied within the text. During the time…
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The main character in The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, committed adultery with the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester was outcast by the puritan community that deemed her a presence of evil. Hester refused to reveal the other adulterer. In doing so, Arthur Dimmesdales quietly…
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Nathaniel Hawthorne uses romanticism to portray the human soul under extreme pressures. Romanticism emphasizes individuality, imagination to discover truth, and values intuition over reason. Then, Romanticism branches out into Dark Romanticism, which embodies horrific themes, presents that individuals are prone to sin and self-destruction, affected psychologically from sin and guilt. In “The Scarlet Letter”, Nathaniel Hawthorne employs elements of romanticism and symbolism to communicate the idea that sin and guilt has a great impact in the manifestations of humans.…
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Every hero has to have their brutal beginnings before they blossom into their true hero status. For Hester Prynne, this was the constant critism and negative views the Puritan community held for Hester because of her commiting the crime of adultery, ultimately leading her to evolve into a stronger person. The townspeople feel like Hester’s sin deserves "At the very least…a hot iron on [her] forehead,” or even death. (Hawthorne, 53) Hester’s heroic charcteristics are first seen when she comes out of the prison. Every one expects Hester to be “dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud,” when she walks out , but instead she emerges with “a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed,” (55). Despite the harsh critisicm of the Puritan society, Hester does not allow herself to be influenced and show shame for her acts, like the community thinks she should. The critiscms of the town do not weaken Hester as a person, rather strengthen her to stand strong and accept her punishment with grace instead of shame. Hester also grew through the wearing of the letter “A” on her bosom. The letter was put on the bosom of Hester to inform the whole community of Hester’s sin. However, Hester embroidered the “A” “so fantastically…It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself,” (56). By making the letter look beautiful rather than shameful, like the towns intentions, Hester proves…
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Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his novel The Scarlet Letter, argues that the role of shame in society is not what keeps the citizens of that society pure and is possibly the worst type of punishment. Hawthorne supports his argument by demonstrating his perspective on shame through the rhetorical strategy of enthymeme given the major premise, minor premise, and conclusion. The author’s purpose is to persuade his audience that salvation can only be earned by being open about and true to what you are, which will lead to the feeling of no shame or guilt in life. The author evokes a cynical tone in order to persuade readers to accept his position that the role of shame in society acts as the worst punishment given to an individual of that society.…
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The main character, Hester Prynne, whose sin was adultery, kept the identity of her partner a secret and the identity of her husband a secret. Hester, as a result of her sin had to wear the scarlet letter A on her chest to remind her and the community of her sin. “When strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter, ….they branded it fresh into her soul.”(p.59) The wearing of the letter also had an effect on Hester’s appearance. “Even the attractiveness of her person had undergone a similar change. It might be partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress and partly to the lack of demonstrations in her manners.….there seemed to be no longer any thing in Hester’s face for Love to dwell upon; nothing in Hester’s form, though majestic and statue-like, that Passion would ever dream of clasping its embrace; nothing in Hester’s bosom, to make it ever again the pillow of affection.”(p.112) Hester becomes an outcast of the community. Though she has everything she needs to take care of herself and her daughter. “ Lonely as was Hester’s situation, and without a friend on earth who dared to show himself, she, however, incurred no risk of want. She possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her thriving infant and herself. It was the art… of needle work.” (p. 56) Her daughter is also a reminder of her sin.…
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