Hester's True Side In committing an act of adultery, Hester Prynne, the primary character in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, finds herself a victim of harsh judgement and ridicule by her Puritan community. She becomes isolated as a result of this scandalous behavior and becomes emotionally involved in a love triangle between her husband and her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, who is the town minister. As a result of her shameful history, the townspeople attempt to destroy and embarrass her by socially neglecting her and labeling her as an outcast and loner. Though the people of the community pursue several attempts to shame her, Hester Prynne's beauty, selflessness, and strength help her overcome this rejection from the townspeople and
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne exposes the blindness of the Puritan people through the treatment of Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale’s external characters. Hester Prynne is labeled as an adulteress and mistreated by society because of their unwillingness to see her true character. Chillingworth, the husband of Hester, leads the town to believe he is an honorable man and skillful doctor, when his true intents root from his vindictive nature Finally, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester’s lover and the father of her baby, acts as the perfect man therefore the town views him as an exemplar model, while he is truly a sinner. In the novel, Hawthorne portrays Hester as a strong, resilient woman, though the members of her community
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.
During the early 1600’s, Puritan groups migrated from Europe to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to establish a settlement based around very strict religious beliefs. The Scarlet Letter is set in this time period and settlement where it was considered a horrendous sin to commit adultery. Hester Prynne engaged in sexual relations with the minister, Dimmesdale, which resulted in a child named Pearl. This novel highlights Hester’s struggle to raise her child and protect herself from the societal attacks thrown at her, while overcoming the label bestowed upon her by society. In, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses specific diction, repetition, and denotative diction in order to convey the purpose of overcoming labels and protecting one’s image.
Even if one make a regret able mistake, should that person be shamed for a past human error? Scarlett Letter takes place in Salem Massachusetts around the time frame where if something seemed strange to others you were accused of being a witch by all the Puritans and Quakers. If a person was accused of such accusations they were usually hung or stoned. Miss Hester Prynne’s is an independent mother who is doing all she can to make sure she keeps her child since it her against the world. In Nathaniel Hawthorne 's book, “The Scarlett Letter” the story ranges from compassion to forgiveness with Little Pearl as the symbol of savior in Miss Hester Prynne’s life.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne opens in a Puritan settlement, where Hester Prynne is being publicly shunned for adultery, in which she has to stand in front of a crowd for overt punishment and wear a scarlet ‘A’ on her chest. She holds her child, Pearl, who symbolizes her inability to hide her own past and her sins from the judgment of her settlement. The novel progresses in a way that further defines her mental strength and ability to endure this judgment. However, Arthur Dimmesdale, the town’s pastor, demonstrates a differing method in which he deals with his own personal judgment and fear of alienation. As The Scarlet Letter advances, his mental strength corrupts with the help of Chillingworth’s methods of trickery and Dimmesdale’s
In this book, Hawthorne details an elaborate story showing the consequences of confessing sins in contrast to concealing it. A sin weighing down on you and destroying you from the inside out is a moral consequence and, the only remedy is confessing the sin. This notion can be seen in the difference between Hester and Dimmesdale with how they handled the scarlet letter and the effects of that. Hester had worn her scarlet letter out for the public to see from the very beginning. She the subject of a lot of the town’s scrutiny.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a novel that focuses on sin in the Puritan society. Hawthorne revolves the theme around the four main characters Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth., and Pearl. Hester Prynne is forced to wear the scarlet letter ‘A’ after committing adultery against her husband Roger Chillingworth, with the minister Arthur Dimmesdale. As a result an odd child is born.
The Puritan belief and lifestyle plays a major role in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter. The story takes place in Puritan New England, and opens with a scene presenting to the audience that a young woman named Hester Prynne has committed adultery. Wearing her punishment proudly, a scarlet letter “A” on her breast, Hester continues to live in New England where she raises her daughter and creates an embroidering business for herself. All the while, in the heart of the town, Hester’s lover and the child’s father, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale silently suffers and is ultimately overcome with guilt from his secret sin until the point of death.
At the beginning of the story, Hester Prynne was punished by being forced to wear the letter A for committing adultery. At this point, Dimmesdale was silent about his role in this sin. Hawthorne previews this future guilt by showing that in human nature, “... the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles
In Nathaniel Hawthorne 's “Scarlet Letter” three characters embodie the morbidity of spirit. The Characters this essay will be speaking of are Dimmsdale and Hester Prynne. I will show you how they show their morbidity and how they reacted to their sin. Hester Prynne in the beginning of the book was young and beautiful. As she grew older and lived under her punishment her features grew harsher .
We are all sinners, no matter how hard we try to hide our faults, they always seem to come back, one way or another. Written in the 19th century, Nathaniel Hawthorne shows us Hester Prynne and how one sin can change her life completely. Hester Prynne changes a great deal throughout The Scarlet Letter. Through the view of the Puritans, Hester is an intense sinner; she has gone against the Puritan way of life committing the highest act of sin, adultery. For committing such a sinful act, Hester must wear the scarlet letter while also having to bear stares from those that gossip about her.
Temptation, the root of all sin, is derived when morality is overshadowed by evil. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter, guilt and absolution are portrayed through the three main characters; Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth. Throughout the entirety of novel, these characters commit sin that contradict with and inflict infamy upon their religion. As a result of falling captive to the arousement of adultery, Hester was publicly humiliated and was forced to bear the letter “A” upon her chest to symbolize the immorality of partaking in the events. Roger Chillingworth is conveyed as a delightful, considerate, and law abiding citizen; however, he is the complete contradictory.
The minister and Hester both fail to let the rest of the colony know that it was the two together who brought a wicked sin into their Puritan lifestyle. Instead of being honest with himself and everyone around, Dimmesdale and Hester cover up their secret until it is physically impossible for him to resist confessing against the wish of his lover. Living a lifestyle of purity and honesty are both very important throughout Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne places heavy emphasis on the fact that living a life away from honesty and purity is hard on not only the body, but also the soul, when one is not honest with the mistakes they have made.
“The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her, -so much power to do, the power to sympathize, -that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said it meant that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength.” (Hawthorne 134) Hester is now comfortable and open to her beautifully embroidered letter, where as Dimmesdale is still hiding from his sin. Instead Dimmesdale cares what the townspeople view him as, considering he is a minister and doesn’t fess up and to be right with God.
