Sin And Guilt In The Scarlet Letter

None of the townspeople wanted to be like Hester Prynne, she was an example of what the people should not do. The townspeople have a strong belief in the Puritan religion and any wrong doings that go against it will be a sin and receive a

In the Scarlet letter, the influence and characteristics of Pearl, Hester Prynne daughter is used to convey the theme of sin and hypocrisy in the novel. Hawthorne uses pearl to draw a parallel between forgiveness and punishment From the beginning of her life she is viewed as, a product of sin. The puritans shunned her, their treatments affected Pearl

Sin is a prevalent theme throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter. The main character, Hester Pryne’s sin of adultery instigates the entire novel. The novel follows Hester’s journey in dealing with her sin in a strict Puritan town. Nathaniel Hawthorne provides an example of how someone’s sin can affect many individuals.

What if the people of today were punished for all the wrong, but small actions that they did. In the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne does an outstanding job of expressing the true of his characters. In the story adults are constrained by societal expectations. Hester Prynne, the main character of the The Scarlet Letter, is accused of adultery, and has to wear the scarlet “A” on her chest. Hester, even after her punishment and the town forgiving her, she still kept the scarlet letter “A” on her chest.

By choosing to have an affair even though she was married, Hester created a life for herself that was filled with “guilt, sinkings of heart, and misfortune” because of her choice to disobey her religious morals (Hawthorne 150). Although she was extremely embarrassed of her actions, believing that she was even unworthy of death, Hester forced herself to live beyond her tragic situation and use it to grow as a person and strengthen her view on standing against the Puritan probity that the town was based upon. In order to punish her, the town forced Hester to wear a scarlet “A” upon her breast, which was meant to represent a “badge of shame” (Hawthorne 150). Through the scarlet hue of the “A”, as well as it being located above Hester’s heart, Hawthorne was able to reference the symbol of a heart that he consistently used throughout the book to describe her mentality. At this point in Hester’s life, the ignominious letter upon her breast symbolized “drops of bitterness” and guilt beginning to fill her heart.

Hester Prynne reached redemption by doing good deeds and making people see past her sin and see who she really is. Arthur Dimmesdale did not achieve redemption because he spent too much time worrying about his reputation. Thus, leading to it being too late for him because of his death. Roger Chillingworth finally redeemed himself after his death when he left Pearl his inheritance. It was something that no one saw coming, because Pearl was the spawn of sin and Chillingworth was seen as the devil.

She realized that everyone will eventually find out about the sin, so she became courageous and took responsibility for her action. After she had completed her punishment in prison, she moved to a cottage. Hester was guilty for what she had done, but she started to help the poor, even though they rejected her. The guilt deprived her from all the “joys [of life] [because] she rejected it as sin” (Hawthorne 130) Hester ceased enjoying anything that a normal person would think as amusing because it was wrong for her since she became the outcast of the town.

Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a brilliant spokesperson and a devout and wise Puritan minister in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, is the lover of a woman who commits adultery, Hester Prynne. Hester, a recognizable adulteress, wears the scarlet letter and lives as an outcast. Contradicting, Reverend Dimmesdale’s sin stays hidden from the Puritan community, know only to Hester and himself. As a minister, Dimmesdale believes he should suffer from punishments the way Hester did for committing the same crime, which leads him to fall into a terrible mental and physical state.

In 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)

After he was raped, Brandon apologized to John and Tom and said that “this is all my fault”. Brandon felt as if he was the one to blame, even after these men beat, raped, and humiliated him. Brandon believed that he was the problem, when in fact he was just trying to live his life the way he wanted to, and he did nothing wrong. After he was raped, Brandon reported it to the police and the way he was treated was horrible. The Sheriff who talked to Brandon had absolutely no compassion for him and what he went through.

Sinner are forced to live with their sins for the rest of their lives, that is a moral consequence they must live with. Sin may not be affecting a person on the outside, but they will continue to feel its effect on the inside. Nathaniel Hawthorn 's The Scarlet Letter gives insight on how sin can affect a person without giving any outward appearance. This is shown when Reverend Dimmesdale becomes frail and dies because of the sin he had committed. Dimmesdale exclaims “God knows; and He is merciful!

In the eyes of the Puritan society Hester is a true sinner due to her committing adultery. While being

Rebranding is not an easy thing to do yet Hester has made this happen as “ People brought all their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble.” people are coming to her for help with similar situation to what hester went through. They trust her enough to tell her their deepest sins yet at the beginning of the book she was shunned by the whole town. This displays the change that the town has taken because in the beginning of the book all they saw her as was the embodiment of the A and the sin she committed yet, now they are seeing her as a real person.

Hidden vs Expressed Sin Destroyed from the outside in or suffering for years on end; neither represents a favorable consequence, but one can lead to a rebirth. Consequences of sin can vary, because hidden sin and exposed sin express themselves in different ways. Hidden sin can eat away at a person, while expressed sin rehabilitates a lost soul. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, two main characters, Dimmesdale and Hester, demonstrate their own dealings with sin. The two had committed adultery, but only Hester’s sin revealed itself to the community.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale commits a mortal sin by having an affair with a married woman, Hester Prynne. As a man of the cloth in Puritan society, Dimmesdale is expected to be the embodiment of the town’s values. He becomes captive to a self-imposed guilt that manifests from affair and his fear that he won’t meet the town’s high expectations of him. In an attempt to mitigate this guilt, Dimmesdale acts “piously” and accepts Chillingworth’s torture, causing him to suffer privately, unlike Hester who repented in the eyes of the townspeople. When Dimmesdale finally reveals his sin to the townspeople, he is able to free himself from his guilt.