Individualism In The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne played an important role in the American Romantic Movement. The Scarlet Letter is his masterpiece, in which he tells the story of a young, beautiful woman named Hester, who lives in the Puritan town of Boston. Hester is sentenced to wear the scarlet letter “A” on her dress, which signifies her adulterous affair. The product of this forbidden love is an insightful girl named Pearl. Hawthorne’s use of nature, emotion, and imagination in order to show the importance of individuality makes The Scarlet Letter a magnificent romantic novel. To begin with, Hester acts as an individualist in the story. Although Hester has challenged the Puritans’ rules and people look at her as an outcast, she finds a place for herself in the society through her charity and needle works. As a result, people start interpreting the scarlet letter as “Able” instead of “Adulterer” (Hawthorne 158). The narrator describes Hester as a heroic individual who accepts her punishment by keeping the scarlet letter on her chest and starts rebuilding her life. Although Hester thinks that Reverend Dimmesdale, her lover, must be happy that nobody knows about his affair with Hester, Dimmesdale tells her, “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!” (Hawthorne 188). Different from Hester, Dimmesdale has
Figurative Language In The Scarlet Letter
1210 Words | 5 PagesWhile Dimmesdale and Hester are discussing how guilt and sin have affected them differently, Dimmesdale states, “‘Happy are you hester that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret!’” p 131. Dimmesdale compares the way Hester deals with her sin to the way he deals with his. Hester has be open about her sin to the point at which she reveals it on her bosom as the scarlet letter, whereas Dimmesdale keeps it in secret as the guilt boils up inside him.
Blindness In The Scarlet Letter
1270 Words | 6 PagesThroughout 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
Hester Prynne Punishment Quotes
786 Words | 4 PagesThe Scarlet Letter narrates the story of Hester Prynne, a recently married young woman sent to America in search of a new and better life, despite the fact her husband, Roger Prynne aka Dr. Roger Chillingworth had remained in England for the purpose of business. She had moved to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the early 1640’s. The book begins with Hester’s emergence from the town’s jail wearing the scarlet letter A embroided on her dress and holding a baby. The scarlet letter is a mark that women convicted of adultery were forced to wear among the Puritans during 17th century New England. The Puritans had been a group of people who sought to purify the Church of England from all Roman Catholic practices.
Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter
1227 Words | 5 PagesHester can wear her scarlet letter in public, and has adjusted enough to continue living a normal life. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, lives in secret with his scarlet letter affecting him more every day. He envies how Hester has managed to embrace her scarlet letter, while his guilt is only increasing. At one point, Dimmesdale feels so much envy that he says, “Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret!
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.
The Consequences Of Hester And Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter
492 Words | 2 Pages“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy,” (KJV 28:13). The message of this short proverb is simple: confess. Despite this, there are millions refusing to reveal their hidden atrocities to the oblivious public. But you don’t need public ridicule for a sin to destroy you, in fact, it would be better if you did confess. This is the ideology of Nathaniel Hawthorne author of The Scarlet Letter.
Archetypes In Scarlet Letter
1099 Words | 5 PagesNathaniel 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.
Scarlet Letter Good Vs Evil
1029 Words | 5 PagesIn Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, he explores the prodigy of love, crime, and revenge. It revolves around a sinful act of passion that impacts Hester Prynne, an adulteress forced to wear a scarlet letter “A”on her bosom; Reverend Dimmesdale, a respected minister in the puritans community; their daughter, Pearl; and Roger Chillingworth, Hester 's husband. Most of the characters portrayed can be analyzed as embodying both “good” and “evil” qualities. Dimmesdale is especially viewed as an ambiguous character. Dimmesdale’s moral ambiguity comes from his internal conflict between his devotion to the church and the guilt he feels for not receiving blame for his sinful act of co-adultery with Hester.
How Does Nathaniel Hawthorne Use Internal Torture In The Scarlet Letter
864 Words | 4 PagesEven after hiding the sin for years Dimmesdale mentions God is merciful and gives him grace so he can achieve salvation. Hester, on the other hand, becomes redeemed in a dissimilar way than Dimmesdale. Hester’s open confession and her redemption is the way she lived her life with the scarlet letter. She lives on the outskirts of town and keeps her head low to separate herself from society. Hawthorne uses multiple voices and the redemption of Dimmesdale and Hester to show how one can be redeemed from
Motifs In The Scarlet Letter
1244 Words | 5 PagesHester is accused of adultery, and is forced by the city magistrates to wear a scarlet letter A on her chest for the rest of her life. She is forced to wear the mark, living with the “pang of it … always in her heart.” (78) Although she initially tries to degrade the negative connotation of the scarlet letter by decorating it and covering it up, she grows to accept “the scarlet letter flaming on her breast” (118), and the letter only increases her strength. The letter, although not a physical punishment, affects her more on a social and emotional level, isolating her from society and drawing ridicule from townsfolk. Her isolation leads her to connect with only a limited few, including Mistress Hibbins, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth.
Theme Of Mental Illness In The Scarlet Letter
885 Words | 4 PagesThe 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.
Scarlet Letter Guilt Quotes
646 Words | 3 Pages“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!” (Hawthorne 180). Dimmesdale had tortured himself with his mistakes.
How Does Nathaniel Hawthorne Use Biblical Allusions In The Scarlet Letter
1458 Words | 6 PagesNathaniel 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
How Hester Prynne Changes In Scarlet Letter
941 Words | 4 PagesWe 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.
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.”
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