The Scarlett Letter: Sin Is Inevitable

The great awakening was a religious revival that occurred in the 1730s and 1740s. It started in England and then gradually made its way over to the American colonies. During this time, many different preachers and religious speakers went around and gave speeches to the people. Jonathan Edwards was one of Americas most important and original philosophical theologians who also went around and gave speeches about God and hell. One of his well-known sermon is “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached at the meeting house in the village of Enfield, Connecticut, on Sunday, July 8, 1741, at the height of the great awakening. In this sermon, Edwards focused on the consequences of leading a sinful life, the power of God and repenting of ones sins, in order to be saved from hell. The purpose behind this piece of writing was not to terrorize or dismay the hearers, but to make them repent and believe in God again. This piece was aimed at those who lacked belief in God as well as churches. In “sinners in the hands of an angry God”, Jonathan Edwards uses different types of literary techniques, such as, imagery, metaphor, similes, repetition, and rhetorical questions to emphasize his point. His point is to scare the people and make them want to repent, which is the theme of the sermon.

What is redemption? Redemption is the act of being saved or freed from sin. This is an important part of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” Redemption was what the characters in the book were seeking, and was the reason for many of their actions. Because of the time period and the fact the people were Puritans, sins were not tolerated nor common, so when they happened they were a huge deal. Puritans felt redemption could not be achieved because the sins were so wrong and so evil. Hawthorne used redemption to help develop the characters and the ideas the reader had on them. The whole book happened because of a sin that occurred, and that sin was the cause of many actions of the characters. Throughout “The Scarlet Letter,” Hawthorne

Puritanism, a version of Calvinism, addresses the sinfulness of man and claims that God has predetermined those who will be saved and those who won’t; despite their sins. In the poem “Here Follow Some Verses Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10, 1666,” Anne Bradstreet recounts a tragic accident that occurred and how she used it to glorify God. Jonathan Edwards conducted sermon titled, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in Connecticut, 1741. In this text he goes in depth into the sinful nature of man, and a just and angry God who doesn’t hesitate. Both passages address the life Puritans should live. The structure in these two texts also play important roles in representing Puritanism in its truest form.

In chapter 2 it states, “a penalty, which in our days, would refer a degree of mocking infamy and ridicule, might then be interested with almost as strong a dignity as the punishment of death itself.” This quote depicts how during the 1600’s being publicly shamed was on the same scale of death. It shows how people cared what was thought about them, so this form of punishment was applicable. The opinions of people still weigh heavy on people in society today with trying to fit in and stand out as better. Upon being publicly shamed, she eventually sees her husband standing in the crowd. He gestures her to be quiet and not to reveal his identity as her husband. She is questioned by many about who the father of her baby is, the governor and eldest clergy man have Reverend Dimmesdale to reveal the father, and she refuses. I feel that Hester has shown courage and strength but society views her as sinful and evil and even though society has shunned and condemns her. While Dimmesdale has shown cowardness and weakness but society views him as righteous. After refusing she is giving a punishment of three hours on the scaffold, a lifetime of wearing the scarlet letter on her chest and put back in her jail cell. The Scarlet Letter emphasizes the fact that the only opinion that matters should be

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.

Sin is defined as “an offense against religious or moral law”. The idea of sin and being ostracized for your sins was extremely relevant during the Puritan period when religion was the greatest component of daily life. The Puritans believed that they had entered a covenant with God and therefore any sin, such as crime and adultery were considered a breach of their covenant with God. This view led to the church punishing people who committed sin in order for God not to punish the church as a whole. The consequences and effects of sin is shown through the character development in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter.

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. Nonetheless, it will be hard; Hester is steadfast to make her daughter Pearl, have a life, just like any other ordinary child.

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)

What is guilt? Every human being has experienced some form of guilt, whether that be forgetting something, lying, or even doing something that is known to go against what is “right.” Guilt is defined as, “recognizing that one of your actions was wrong and may have caused someone else harm. Guilt is feeling sorry for something you did” (Difference Between, p. 1). While guilt may be a good emotion to experience at first, the emotion can lead to shame. Shame differs from guilt by being “an emotion that eats away at your self esteem, and causes one to think of themselves as being intrinsically bad” (p. 1). These two emotions are portrayed in The Scarlet Letter. Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, we see guilt and shame build up in the

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne explores recurring themes of suffering surrounding the main characters, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale both commit adultery with each other, and, as a result of this, both experience gruesome and occasionally unbearable forms of suffering. Though they undergo different forms of pain, both of their experiences are highly reliant on how the Puritan society treats them. Hester 's pain stems from the shame and estrangement she receives from the community, while Dimmesdale’s is due to the reverence with which the community regards him. Although, in spite of the fact that both Hester and Dimmesdale receive harsh penalty for their sin, by the end of the book, Hawthorne shows how their suffering is, in fact, the key to their salvation. The hardships and punishments of both Hester and Dimmesdale, while difficult to endure at the time, were eventually beneficial and allowed them to free themselves from the Puritan community and escape their pain.

How can a gift from God be wrapped in sin? The distinction between good and evil was a prevalent topic in the early 19th century. Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, was fostered in an era in America in which transcendentalism challenged traditional Puritan and Calvinist views. He was

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.

There are a limited amount of things on this earth that are inevitable obstacles and one of those is sin. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote an interesting story called “A Chapter from an Abortive Romance,” that sin plays a significant role in. In this story, the main character, Ethan Brand, was a lime burner that recently returned to his home city from a quest to find the unpardonable sin. (The word “unpardonable” suggests that one commits a sin that is so despicable that this sin is unforgivable by God.) There is no clear interpretation of the theme or message of this story but after closely reading it, one might suggest that there is a high correlation between sin and the kiln that was used to burn the marble to create the lime.

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

Hester Prynne was an example of sin, guilt, and redemption. Hawthorne uses bible passages as examples. The consequences for our sins are determined by God and where we will go. Hester’s punishment is wearing the letter, ‘A’ on her breast. "God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonoured bosom, to connect her parent for ever with the race and descent of mortals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven!"- (pg 55). Hester freed herself from sin by removing The Scarlet Letter and realizing she loves Dimmesdale, with this she asks for his forgiveness and confesses. “Let God punish! Thou shalt forgive!”(pg.118) Hester did a good deed when she kept Dimmesdale’s identity a secret. “I deem it not likely that he will betray the secret.He will doubtless seek