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What Is The Secrecy In The Scarlet Letter

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The Scarlet Letter begins in 1642 Boston, Massachusetts with the Puritan society punishing Hester Prynne for her sins against God. The puritans believe that any crime is a crime or a sin against God and the Puritan leaders take this very seriously. Hester committed adultery with an unknown man.She was living out her punishment peacefully with her child Pearl until Roger Chillingworth appears back in town. No one knows that Chillingworth is Hester 's husband except for Hester. Everyone wants to know who the father of Pearl is but Hester is keeping his identity a secret. From the beginning Chillingworth is determined to figure out who the unknown man is. The secrecy in The Scarlet Letter affects them in both physical and mental ways. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrates how secrecy effects Hester Prynne, Roger chillingworth , and Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester is the sole person that knows the secrets that Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are hiding from the townspeople.Hester’s character is formed and shown as she goes through great ignominy from wearing the scarlet letter A to having her the reminder of her sin by her side. Hester has promised both of these men not to share their secrets with the world and throughout the novel she stays true. Since she keeps the identity of her …show more content…

Secrets play a big role in the plot of the story. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth both die as a result of secrecy. Dimmesdale finally comes clean and claims pearl as his daughter and then “holds his hand over his heart” and dies. Chillingworth dies shortly after because his only will to live was when he wanted to find out the father and then punish him but now Dimmesdale is dead therefore he has nothing to live for. He strangely leaves everything he has to Pearl. Pearl is the only one who came out of all of these secrets to live a happy and normal

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