Sin In The Scarlet Letter

When Hester is forced to the scaffold the first time she gets emotionally berated for her sin as the scaffold starts defining who she is. She becomes unstable and afraid of what people think. She can’t try to defend herself as she has a chance to be killed for what she has done, so she takes the heat without letting anyone know who her spouse is. They said that she could take the

She symbolizes evil in the sense that she is born through sin and therefore she represents the punishment that God inflicts on Hester's adulterous act. Pearl also symbolizes the guilt that her parents are experiencing. She defies the puritans' law by being cheerful when she is associating with nature instead of suffering. Another way in which pearl symbolizes punishment is the fact that she keeps pestering and bothering her mother. “‘Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!’

This child, Pearl, was born due to a sin committed by her mother. Upon the scaffold, she holds her daughter as the townspeople openly discuss scarlet letter sewed on her attire and ways to punish her more effectively. Hester stands there soaking in everything around her, all the abhorrent comments about her choices and lifestyle. She suffers from the abasement of the community and no one shows her compassion, yet she persevered. Hester is forced to be paraded through the streets like a criminal, but in the townspeople 's eyes, she is a criminal.

She will be angry until she sees that Elizabeth Proctor is dead for calling out suspicion between her and John Proctor. Abigail is known for threatening people if it does not go her way. When Abigail is in the courtroom, she could get asked the most simple question by the judge and she would take it way out of proportion. Abigail just wants Proctor all to herself. With Abigail's "friends" she is always angry with them and constantly threatening them; just so they will not tell the truth about Abigail Williams and John Proctor.

She not only betrayed Ali by committing adultery, but also leaving Hassan without so much as holding him because of his cleft lip. According to the text,” Sanaubar had taken one glance…barked a bitter laughter…she had refused to even hold Hassan, and just five days later, she was gone.” (Hosseini, 9). Her actions had left Hassan without a mother figure. In reality, Hassan’s cleft lip was karma for her committing adultery with someone outside her marriage.

The townspeople gave Hester the punishment of wearing a scarlet letter “A” on her chest, and using her as an example of a transgressor. Hester’s husband hates her and for doing an adultery act while he was lost at sea. They both despise each other, for they think of betrayal. Though they both committed a wrong act. The puritan religion has strict beliefs, and anyone who lives in the town must follow all the strict rules.

“Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature. A woman, in the eyes of the Puritans, due to her unvirtuous act, was given an unbeautiful gift. They believe she was given a demon child for her sin.

However, in The Scarlet Letter, after Hester had committed her sin of adultery and received her punishment (the “A”), the women were anything but polite. If Hester was seen in public, her existence was shunned, she was criticized, yelled at, and things were even thrown at her. In the Bible, which the Puritans strictly followed, Jesus said to his followers, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Instead of being merciful and kind towards Hester, the women were scornful and could care less about her. To repent for her sin, Hester started to commit herself to serving the less fortunate of the society, such as the poor.

We are all sinners. Although one may try hard not to sin, all humans eventually succumb at some time or another to sin. While people may not able to avoid the fate which awaits them, the power of free will allows people to decide how they will respond to sin. While some may respond with guilt and regret, others may react with a sense of redemption and a renewed sense of responsibility. Nathaniel Hawthorne, an American author during the 19th century witnessed the power of sin to wreak havoc not only to an individual but a whole community.

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)

As Moody grew older and reach her teenage years, she constantly revolved against society. She also became angrier by the older generation like her mother, because they did not wish to challenge the system. The old generation reached a state

Once the idea of witchery took deep root into the hearts of the people, many were accused and arrested. Out of the selfishness of her heart, Abigail accused Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft in an attempt to be rid of her so she could have John. She kept telling herself that she was in love with him, and she would use any opportunity to her advantage to be rid of Elizabeth. This however, would not bode well with John.

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

This is a powerful commentary of the time that directly relates to this day in age. Human identity is now just as sinful, if not more so, than it was during Paul’s time in Rome. The media is continually reporting on acts of depravity including moral decay, sexual acts, and murder. In Romans (1:26) it states “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.”, and in Romans (1:28) it states “Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind…” showing the constant state of sin between then and