Preview

Scarlet Letter Essay

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
619 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Scarlet Letter Essay
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter has much to instruct psychoanalysts and psychotherapists, probably no other American novel lends itself so well to an study in gravity of the dynamics, conflicts, and aggressive attribute of shame. Hawthorne‘s novels deal with persons caught in a fight between individual desires and the ethical weight of society, a struggle which the being usually loses. More importantly, Hawthorne‘s characters are secluded individuals, who refuse society‘s principles but because they are imperfect folks inclined to sin. The Scarlet Letter is a novel that gives an insight look at the society and Bell articulates this realism by commenting on “ The Custom House “ in his essay “Hawthorne and the Real” that :
“In a passage
…show more content…
He uses Dimmesdale and Hester to represent sin. Both characters raise and develop because of their joint sin. The society in The Scarlet Letter sets far-reaching limitations on individual. Although the Puritans had hoped to set up an utopia in the latest World, where each person would be integrated under a shared dogma, their plot appears to be futile before it even began. As Edward P. Bailey and Philip A. Powell explained saying that:
“In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne expresses the view that the structures of institutions, while not perfect, are necessary to keep society ordered and running smoothly. He felt that institutions keep people from having ―dangerous radical thoughts that might destroy essential order. Although Hawthorne presents Puritan society as rather harsh, he shows that once Hester Prynne is denied its structure, she turns to ―dangerous independence.”(The Practical Writer with Readings ,2008:431)
Sin premanently perverts the human character, everything that Hester and Dimmesdale do after committing the sin of adultery, will be tainted by a sense of sin. This novel explains that Man is inherently pious but social norms and conventions are bad. In this novel different type of sins are represented as Arlin Turner notes that there are

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    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.…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the year’s society`s have developed their own standard way of thinking creating traditional norms. Norms are conventional and are expected to be fulfilled by the individuals in that society. If a norm were to be violated, it would bring severe consequences to those individuals. In The Scarlet Letter and The Minister`s Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne both take place during the puritan timeframe in which the biggest norm violation would be the act of committing a sin causing those who violate these norms to suffer severe consequences. In The Scarlet Letter Hester and Dimmesdale commit adultery and as a result, both suffer for their transgressions in different ways. Moreover, in The Ministers Black Veil Minister Hopper wears a black veil to accept his…

    • 2035 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Nathaniel's Hawthorne most famous masterpiece "The Scarlet Letter" and "The Minister's Black Veil" share and explore the same theme, the theme of sin, especially the secret sin. In this essay I will discuss the sin of the main characters in "the scarlet letter" and 'the minister black veil". Also compare and contrast the sin of each character with the other main characters.…

    • 1359 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The downfall of an individual can grow from the societal influences of society’s compulsion to conform. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne and reverend Arthur Dimmesdale endeavor to assimilate to the expectations of a puritan society. Throughout the novel, Prynne and Dimmesdale fight to make amends for their sin of adultery, and as the town glares a spiteful eye at Prynne, Dimmesdale hides away, still loved by all. Prynne makes a conscious decision to embrace her quarantine from the community’s shunning. However, Dimmesdale faces an internal battle of shame and guilt while concealing his immorality. Prynne and Dimmesdale suffer the fate of alienation, however, Prynne accepts isolation, becoming steadfast, while Dimmesdale…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the Puritan community banned all forms of sin. Sin was looked upon as evil, being connected to the devil and his dark ways. Hester Prynne, the main character of the story, was shunned by the rest of the Puritan world after committing the sin of adultery. She lived in a world where it was not accepted. She was isolated from the world around her, having little hope. Throughout the novel, symbols such as the character of the kind woman, the wild rose bush outside of the prison doors and the character of Pearl, Hester Prynne's illegitimate child, are used to show that even in a world full of sin and darkness, there is always hope.…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne consistently uses the conflicting personalities of his main characters to augment the social and political instability of the Puritan community in which the work takes place. By focusing on the responsibilities and roles of a handful of important characters throughout the novel, Hawthorne is able to use them as examples of the hypocritical nature of the community’s beliefs. As a result of his implementation and analysis of characters, such as Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, Hawthorne ensures that the reader is able to understand the impact that a strong dedication to their religion has on the community.…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The scarlet letter

    • 2465 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Scarlet Letter portrays the townspeople as a fierce and judgmental group symbolizing the hypocritical characteristics in the members of a society. The puritan society of this novel views adultery as a serious and unforgivable crime. The townspeople place social status and high respect for Dimmesdale over the reality of his actions. Though Hester and Dimmesdale committed the same sin, the priest cannot be moved from his holy position at the pulpit. While Hester is persecuted and burdened with “ignominy” for the rest of her life. The puritan people claim to stand for the forgiveness of sins, yet they show only conditional forgiveness in their own town. This is evident in modern society as well. One’s social rank is largely factored into the consideration of their punishment. So much so that if ones rank is high and prestigious enough, their crime may not even be considered itself. This is evident in Chapter 11 when Dimmesdale means to confess, “Would not the people start up in their seats, by a simultaneous impulse, and tear him down out of the pulpit which he defiled? Not so, indeed! They heard it all, and did but reverence him the more. They little guessed what deadly purport lurked in those self-condemning words. "The godly youth!" said they among themselves.” Dimmesdale is so highly extolled…

    • 2465 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In The Scarlet Letter hypocrisy is evident everywhere. The characters of Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the very society that the characters lived in, were steeped in hypocrisy. Hawthorne was not subtle in his portrayal of the terrible sin of hypocrisy; he made sure it was easy to see the sin at work, just as it is easy to see many of the sins at work in society. There are many parallels that can be drawn between the characters of The Scarlet Letter and those of today 's society. Just because this book is set in colonial times, does not mean its lessons are not applicable to the world we live in.…

    • 2091 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne utilizes the repressive authoritarian Puritans as a way to enable the equally condemning Victorians to reflect upon their own society. Hawthorne expresses the earthly…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    He enters sin when he believes he can dispassionately pursue and discover Hester’s secret lover. Chillingworth begins his search and quickly latches onto the naive minister. Chillingworth slowly tortures Dimmesdale. As he inflicts more pain, Chillingworth becomes emotionally involved. His continuous tormenting begins to control Dimmesdale. Chillingworth becomes a “chief actor, in the poor minister’s interior world” (129). Dimmesdale’s mind is broken beyond repair. Chillingworth is investing his life in wreaking havoc upon Dimmesdale’s intellect. Chillingworth has a “heart full of torture” and is “deriving his enjoyment thence” (156). Not only is Chillingworth killing Dimmesdale, but he is gloating about the pain he has inflicted upon Dimmesdale. He tells Hester that no “mortal suffer what this man suffer” (157). Chillingworth is causing a man to suffer more than any other ever. It is his lone enjoyment in life. Chillingworth wants Dimmesdale to pay for his abominable sin for all of eternity. To do this, Chillingworth torments Dimmesdale to “disorganize and corrupt his spiritual being” (177). This action will cause Dimmesdale to be unable to atone and rot in Hell for his afterlife. Chillingworth is now a living Devil, which is the climax of his escalation of sins. During this time, Chillingworth makes no efforts at all to atone for these horrific sins. He tells Hester that…

    • 1274 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Individual identity, society’s expectations, and sin are all central themes in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Gothic Romance, The Scarlet Letter. Throughout the novel, the reader is introduced to a number of significant characters, each motivated by their own ambitions, and often driven by the effects of fear and guilt. The majority of the characters in The Scarlet Letter are male, but there are a few women who are portrayed, and they are generally not respected by society. To fully understand this concept, one must take into consideration the time period in which the novel takes place. In the seventeenth century, women did not have much freedom.…

    • 1449 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Scarlet Letter

    • 1043 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In the 16th century, Puritans immigrated to America from Great Britain in order to escape religious persecution, and by the mid 17th century they had erected a well established society based on their theological beliefs. The Puritan religion was one of austerity and geared towards spiritual devotion rather than worldly possessions. Puritans followed rigid laws which rarely changed with time. They also had little tolerance for anyone who broke these laws. Individuals who did violate these laws however, faced punishment on various levels and would have to prove their repentance to themselves and society. The Scarlet Letter, set in mid 17th century Boston, portrays such forms of repentance from two perspectives. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, constructs the plot to revolve around the journey of repentance of two characters: Hester Prynne and Rev. Dimmesdale. Both characters have committed the blasphemous sin of adultery together, but only Hester has been punished for it, whereas Dimmesdale has yet to be discovered for his involvement in the misdeed. Hester’s severe punishment is to carry the eternal burden of the scarlet letter A, a symbol that apprises everyone of her status as an adulterer, and outcasts her from the rest of society. Even though she is shunned by society, Hester still manages to perpetrate acts of penance to atone for her sin. However, Hester is not the only character who seeks repentance; Rev. Dimmesdale self-inflicts punishment as a form of penance. Throughout the novel, both characters strive to achieve true repentance, a feeling of remorse which comes from the soul. As committed as they are to atoning for their sin, neither Hester nor Dimmesdale truly ever reach the state of repentance. Their failure to achieve true repentance can be perceived through their similar goals of penitence and their different forms of punishment.…

    • 1043 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    As stated, a major theme in the novel is that of free will and necessary acceptance of the consequences of one’s decision. Hester and Dimmesdale’s situation is comparable to that of Adam and Eve. Like Adam and Eve, the characters in the novel are made aware of their humanness through sin, that is, the realization that free will separates them from other creatures. Once expelled from society, or in Adam and Eve’s case, the Garden of Eden, they are forced to toil and procreate, the tasks that seem to define the human condition. The story of Hester and Dimmesdale recalls the story of Adam and Eve because, in both cases, sin results in expulsion and suffering. However, most significantly, it also results in knowledge. The knowledge of what it means to be human.…

    • 1283 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Scarlet Letter

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Sin and Redemption is the main theme of The Scarlet Letter because of the actions of the characters. For example, Hester commits adultery, and then redeems herself through her actions. “It is our Hester, the town’s own Hester. Who is so kind to the poor, helpful to the sick, so comforting to the afflicted.” (Hawthorne 159). This is a member of the community speaking of Hester’s change. She commits the sin of adultery and realizes what she did was wrong. She redeems herself by helping the community and changing her image. She is forgiven by many and accepted more throughout the community. On the other hand, Reverend Dimmesdale chooses not to redeem himself at first in order to protect his image. He wants to wait until his judgment day. “Not then, Pearl, but another time…At the great judgment day.” (150). This is Dimmesdale replying to Pearl asking if and when he will take her hand, and her mother’s hand. He plans to wait until the day he dies to do so.…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sin is a common struggle among many people regardless of personal beliefs. People want to do well in this world, obey some moral; people want to make someone proud, even if it’s not a god. Sin is an evident topic in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hester Prynne’s sin is public knowledge, whereas Arthur Dimmesdale's identical sin is hidden. Arthur Dimmesdale, a reverend, was thought to be the most unlikely culprit of sin in Boston. Arthur Dimmesdale shows Hawthorne’s theme that sin occurs in everyone regardless of social status.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays