Capital Punishment In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
Capital punishment was wide spread in Puritan Boston. Although the Bible was a moral guide, societies were swarmed with crimes and sins. The punishments included severe whipping, imprisonment, slitting nostrils, and public execution on scaffold(“Puritan”). In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, although Hester and Dimmesdale are guilty of the similar sins, they experience different punishments and outcomes. Hester and Dimmesdale differ in types of sins. It is clear that they both commit adultery. However, the sins Hester and Dimmesdale commit have distinct nuance. First, Hester is a married woman. Her sin is definitely entitled as adultery. The book talks about Puritan world of Boston. It is when the words of God are primary life principals. Nonetheless, here stands a woman who infringes them, and sins against God. It also shocks the readers that the opponent of her crime is a reverend. The fact that Hester commits a sin with a reverend maximizes the effect of the sin. On the other hand, Reverend Dimmesdale is an unmarried man. Also, he is a reverend who should hold all the followers of God and speak for them. It is a great sin that he has a sexual relationship with a married woman. …show more content…
Hester commits adultery as a married woman, and Dimmesdale commits fornification as an unmarried man. Due to these sins, they both get punishments. Hester goes to jail for a few years and is sentenced to wear scarlet letter A on her chest. She is shunned and isolated. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, does not reveal his sin to public. Therefore, he is guilty throughout his life, and he is atoned. Unable to surmount, he confesses and dies on the scaffold. Later, Hester comes back to Boston and continues her job. When she dies, she is buried next to her loved one, with both sharing one scarlet letter
Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter
1227 Words | 5 PagesHester and Dimmesdale have both committed adultery, but Hester accepts and embraces what has happened. Alternatively, for Dimmesdale, enduring seven long years of guilt and sin are required to get him to finally reveal the truth. Taking so many years to do so shows how
Who Is Dimmesdale's Decay In The Scarlet Letter
417 Words | 2 PagesSimilarly, Dimmesdale envies the closure that Hester’s punishment has brought her: “‘Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly open your bosom! Mine burns in secret!’” (151). In this dialogue, Dimmesdale articulates how differently their sin has been treated. In Hester’s case, public punishment initially brought disapproval, but eventually led her to charity and a general acceptance by members of the society.
Compare And Contrast Dimmesdale And Dimmesdale
728 Words | 3 PagesHester was a strong woman, while Dimmesdale was a weak and cowardly man. Hester took on all of the shame for having an affair and illegitimate child. While Dimmesdale got off scot free and still began to deteriorate. Hester had to deal from the very beginning the horrible stigma that was associated with the scarlet letter. Dimmesdale only admitted his sin when people felt that Hester was not such a horrible person and begun to accept her.
Who Is Dimmesdale's Suffering In The Scarlet Letter
522 Words | 3 PagesDimmesdale and Hester suffers because of the sin they did. Dimmesdale feels guilt even though he never confesses that he is the farther. He would go to the scaffold at night and stand there screaming trying to get the people to come outside to see him but it was just all in his head when she would stand on the scaffold during the day with the red A on her chest she felt guilt even though she would not tell anyone who the farther is and for having an affair while her husband was missing for years. For example, Dimmesdale does not want to confess about his sin because he does not want to face the consequences. This is illustrated when Dimmesdale says, “then and there before the judgment-seat, thy mother and thou, and I must stand together” (Dimmesdale 139).
The Scarlet Letter Penance Vs. Penitence
604 Words | 3 PagesHowever, he will not repent for his sin until he confesses. Penitence is regret for one’s wrongdoing. Dimmesdale does not feel penitence for his sins: Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognizes me for what I am!
Arthur Dimmesdale's Guilt Quotes
1158 Words | 5 PagesDimmesdale suffers differently from Hester, because while she “bore it all” to the townspeople (181), his fears forced him to hide his sin, living a life full of “nothing but despair” (177). Hester, though made a social pariah of the town, has a more honest and healthy way of dealing with her sin. Because Hester is forced to face her wrongdoings under the watchful eye of her Puritan neighbors, she did not have the same guilt of secrecy that Dimmesdale did. Dimmesdale, by hiding his sin, allows himself to become a captive to his guilt. The way that Dimmesdale dealt with his guilt was unhealthy for him, both mentally and physically.
Hester's Punishment In The Scarlet Letter
640 Words | 3 PagesHester was sentenced to wear the scarlet letter "A" for the rest of her life and Hester was forced to stand on the scaffold, so she could be publicly humiliated for her sin. Hester and Pearl will go through life, being shamed by others. The townspeople want to see Hester suffer. Hester and Pearl are strong enough to receive the looks and the talks that they will be getting from the
Puritan Values In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
1471 Words | 6 PagesHistoric literature is at the mercy of the authors who write about their history. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hester is scolded for her adultery but through 7 years of penance, only then, she starts to be accepted into the Puritan town of Salem again. Puritan beliefs valued seeking salvation from God through acts of kindness and honor. However, the novel reveals the truth behind Puritan Society to the extent that keeps the reputation of the Puritans flawed but still righteous. Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays deceitful Puritan values through the meticulous choice of diction in his progressive novel The Scarlet Letter.
Dimmesdale's Guilt Quotes In The Scarlet Letter
406 Words | 2 PagesDimmesdale’s Guilt In Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter, admitting guilt opens oneself to sin. When Hester admits to being guilty of adultery, it condemns her. However, by accepting her condemnation, she saves her soul. On the other hand, Dimmesdale does not confess to his part in the adultery. He keeps his guilt bottled up inside.
Punishment In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne
903 Words | 4 PagesWhen he returns, Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, plots revenge on Arthur Dimmesdale, the town minister, because he is the father of Pearl. Hester becomes an outcast in this Puritan society. The scarlet letter Hester wears has many meanings including adulterer, able, and angel; however, Hester perceives this
Hester Prynne Punishment In Scarlet Letter
791 Words | 4 PagesPunishment of Puritans for their sins occurred harshly and frequently, and these punishments ranged from fines, branding, and severe whippings to hanging and death. Many of these penalties involved public humiliation of some kind, which made it extremely difficult for townspeople to accept by their peers after they had sinned. Because the Puritans believed religion was immensely important, the community was often reluctant to allow citizens that exhibited sinful behavior to achieve redemption (Cox). However, in the case of Hester Prynne, an adulterer in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter, the townspeople eagerly made amends with her. This novel narrates the life of Hester Prynne, who committed adultery and courageously accepted the repercussions
Comparison Of Hester And Dimmesdale In Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter
299 Words | 2 PagesHester and Dimmesdale have a very unique love for eachother. Their love is reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet in the way that they are not able to pursue it. They are people who have been hardened and hurt by their past mistakes. They share that connection with each other unlike anyone else. Hester and Pearl go to meet up with Dimmesdale in the forest in complete effort to keep their relationship a complete secret.
Scarlet Letter Compare And Contrast Essay
354 Words | 2 PagesHester makes most of the sin. Hester and Dimmesdale can be compared and contrasted in the way they handled their scarlet letters. While Hester is stubborn, Dimmesdale is extremely cautious. Hester and Dimmesdale both committed a sin and were affected by that sin greatly. Additionally, keeping a secret from others can be a sneaky task and may turn out bad for an individual.
Essay On Evil In The Scarlet Letter
719 Words | 3 PagesThe townspeople “[began] to look upon the scarlet letter as a token, not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since.” This quote exemplifies how sin is not a death sentence for Hester. Through hard work and charity it allowed the rigid Puritan society to see her as something different, and as someone who would not let society define who she was. Hester, thus, was not only able to change herself, but also the image in which society viewed her by working hard to benefit the public. Likewise, the scarlet letter which was supposed to represent sin was instead “fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom.”
Hypocrisy Of The Puritan Society In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne
936 Words | 4 PagesIn the “Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays hypocrisy of the Puritan society, where the protagonist Hester Prynne face many consequences of her actions and the how she tries to redeem herself to the society. During the seventeenth puritans believe that it is their mission to punish the ones who do not follow God’s word and it is their job to stop those from sinning. Therefore, the hypercritical puritan society punishes Hester harshly for committing adultery, but in Hester’s mind, she believes that what she did was not a sin but acts of love for her man. Eventually, she redeems herself by turning her crime into an advantage to help those in need, yet the Puritan society still view her as a “naughty bagger.” (Hawthorne 78)
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