The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a novel that tells the story of Hester Prynne, who commits adultery on her husband, Roger Chillingworth, with the reverend of the town, Arthur Dimmesdale. This causes Chillingworth to allow evil to grow within him. Likewise, in another American gothic novel, Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville, the captain of the whaling ship, The Pequod, becomes evil after the whale named Moby Dick bites his leg off. Roger Chillingworth and Captain Ahab are both evil characters with many similarities in the way they allow evil to manifest within them. What starts this evil within these two characters is the fact that both of them have a feeling of absence in their manliness after suffering these unfortunate
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is commonly considered a classic, most likely due to it’s intense examination of the human soul. The Scarlet Letter is a novel about Hester Prynne, a woman who commits adultery and is therefore required to wear a scarlet ‘A’ on her chest, her lover, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, her legal husband, Roger Chillingworth, and her illegitimate child, Pearl. Throughout the novel Hester and Dimmesdale keep the fact that Dimmesdale is Pearl’s father a secret, and explores the consequences of their actions. Through the development of the previously listed characters Hawthorne provides great insight into the human condition, especially through the development of Dimmesdale.
In stories or real life, individuals are influenced by their life changing experiences whether it was huge or small. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, built and wrote the characters with positive and negative influences in the story. Throughout the story, Roger Chillingworth’s character reveals and changes because of the influences from revenge. Since he is Hester Prynne’s husband, Roger Chillingworth became the antagonist when he realizes his wife committed adultery. He decides to take revenge on the man who Hester loves.
Avenging and vengeful is the man who is wronged! This statement could be applied to several characters throughout the novel The Scarlet Letter, written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Sinful acts are inflicted upon many of the minute cast of characters, which impose a riveting journey for the reader to endure. Even more so are the reactions these prominent characters have toward their anguish and adversities as they heave themselves into the depths of solitariness, self-inflicted agony, and woe. Among these richly intriguing personalities is the town’s sinful stain, Hester Prynne, who has committed adultery; the demon-child, Pearl, who was a product to her mother’s adultery; the unholy clergyman, Arthur Dimmesdale, the other adulterer; and the implacable Doctor, Roger Chillingworth.
In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hawthorne ultimately concludes the book by using rhetorical devices. The inevitable fate of Roger Chillingworth, Hester Prynne, and Reverend Dimmesdale eventually clash and a fatal disaster occurs. Chillingworth's evilness has met up with him. As all is revealed to the public, one’s intuition is proven to be more powerful than expected. As they all gather at the public square on Election Day, Hester and Pearl observe from afar as the parade goes by.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's romantic novel The Scarlet Letter depicts Hester and Dimmesdale, sinners who deserve punishment by the oppressive Puritan society. Dimmesdale, however, avoids punishments through Hester’s silence, and Hester suffers through the punishment alone, broken. Hawthorne presents archetypes of darkness, color red, and star-crossed lover to establish tragedy within the contrasting characters of Hester and Dimmesdale. Hawthorne further informs the readers that consequence depends on the attitude towards punishment.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter a peculiar character whose real name is never revealed, poisons a man with a vicious bite. The reader may know him as Roger Chillingworth, the husband of Hester Prynne and self proclaimed physician, but a closer look at his appearance and actions will show how he fueled the fire of Hell. How Roger Chillingworth was the Devil. Everything about Chillingworth was told through his appearance throughout the story as he became the embodiment of Hell’s tyrant.
Evil vs Evil:Jack vs Macbeth People who thirst for power hungry will commit evil acts to remain in power. In the novel “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding, and the play “Macbeth” by William Shakespeare, there are two wicked characters who killed and manipulated for power. Take Jack, a once preppy choir boy turned tyrant and Macbeth a once brave and loyal warrior turned tyrant. Jack and Macbeth are two characters who are ambitious, whose personalities darkly change throughout their stories and who are evil. Jack is bent on power from the beginning whereas, Macbeth is manipulated by three witches and his wife to take power.
To begin, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes pathos throughout his writing to imprint the importance of individual conscience into the reader 's mind. Hawthorne begins the book by having the reader pity the main character, Hester Prynne, as she is a young, husbandless, mother in a society that shames her for her unfortunate circumstances: “haughty as her demeanor was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung in the street for them all to spurn and trample upon” (Hawthorne, 53). The consistent misfortune of Prynne evokes emotion in the reader and stresses the weight of her decisions. Prynne manages her way through such a hostile society -“Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly on your bosom” (Hawthorne, 188)- in a way that is metaphorically applicable to the real world, allowing the reader to truly connect and understand the character for who they are.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, a famous American author from the antebellum period, notices the emphasis on individual freedoms in the works by Ralph Waldo Emerson and other Transcendentalists during his residency in the Brook Farm’s community. In response to these ideas, Hawthorne writes The Scarlet Letter, a historical novel about Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s lives as they go through ignominy, penance, and deprecation from their Puritan community to express their strong love for each other. Their love, even though it is true, is not considered as holy nor pure because of Hester past marriage to Roger Chillingworth, and thus Hester gained the Scarlet Letter for being an adulterer. Hawthorne utilizes biblical allusions, such as the stories of
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses the relentless character, Mr. Roger Chillingworth, to describe the result of being resentful and unforgiving to his wife’s secret lover, Reverend Dimmesdale. Chillingworth is the character who represents the definition of evil in the novel. The Scarlet Letter also vividly describes how Chillingworth became self-absorbed with vengeance and how vengeance changed him for the worst. Throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter gives evidence of a clear picture of a life consumed by vengeance resulting in obsession over committing evil acts which leads to Chillingworth self-destruction. In the Scarlet Letter the definition of vengeance based off of Chillingworth’s character is the act of recovering
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was published in 1850. It focuses on the life of the main protagonist, Hester Prynne, living in a Puritan community. Both Yamin Wang and Maria Stromberg offer insight into The Scarlet Letter and analyze multiple aspects of the story.. Both Wang and Stromberg claim that there is an underlying ideology hidden in the texts of the book. Wang approaches the story from a feminist approach and states that Hester represents the feminism in the Puritan community, and she analyzes the Puritan’s outlook on women in their society.
The book “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a complex novel that has underlying themes of sin and the responsibility for sin. The novel takes place in a Puritanical society, but two people, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, fornicate with each other, even though Hester is married to someone else. Only Hester is punished, so Dimmesdale keeps his guilt inside, not revealing it to anyone. Hester’s husband, Chillingworth, then proceeds to ruin Hester’s partner in crime, corrupting his soul and being the ultimate cause for his death. Hester, on the other hand, leads a relatively happy life after she had repented for her sin.
Certain circumstances can drive even the most positive man to insanity. There is an example of this in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel T the Scarlet Letter--a book about lust, hate, and betrayal. Roger Chillingworth is a model of someone who is betrayed and almost forced into hatred and vengeance. Chillingworth has an unquenchable passion for books and his studies; so passionate that he leaves Hester for two years to study Indian medicine. While he is gone, his wife, Hester Prynne, commits adultery with the young pastor, Arthur Dimmesdale.
The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story about a woman, Hester Prynne, who committed adultery with the reverend, Arthur Dimmesdale, which will not confess his sin. A physician, Roger Chillingworth, takes care of him on the outside, but behind closed doors Chillingworth is keeping Dimmesdale in his pain. Because the man will not confess his sin he tortures himself, which causes physical and mental illnesses. Another American gothic novel, Moby Dick, was writing from the author's, Herman Melville , experience on a whaling ship. The wailing ship’s captain is Captain Ahab.
Imagine living in a place where one small sin could define who you are for the rest of your life. That is what happened in The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850. The novel is set in a seventeenth-century Puritan community in Boston, Massachusetts. A young woman by the name of Hester Prynne commits a small act of adultery and is shamed for the rest of her life, by wearing a scarlet letter “A” on her breast. The book is centered around the theme of justice and judgement.