ipl-logo

Comparing Relationships In The Scarlet Letter And Hester Prynne

995 Words4 Pages

The relationship between the scarlet letter and Hester Prynne is elaborate and ever-changing. Ever since Hester was forcefully given her scarlet letter as a punishment, she has felt ambivalently towards it. It causes her grief, yet it fulfills her being. Hester can leave that grief and the town that torments her whenever she wants to, but chooses to stay with the torment, her daughter, and the letter. The letter was meant to shame and define Hester, but instead Hester made her own definition of the letter by refusing to accept the label by the town. Hester argues that she cannot be judged or labeled by the town, because God is the only one who can judge her. The letter adapted different meanings as Hester’s story continued. Once Hester received the letter, the letter …show more content…

Although the Puritans were strict, they were not very good at following their basic doctrines. It is mentioned in The Wordy Shipmates that, “Jesus of Nazareth went to a hill in Galilee and told his disciples, ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.’” (Vowell 45) In most cases, the Puritans who believe in Jesus and fear God do not abide the words spoken by them. The Puritans are too focused on being pure and just that anyone who interferes with their mission will be disposed. Because of that, the Puritans in The Scarlet Letter do not love their enemies (sin and sinners), but instead curse them. Interestingly, Hester is the only one who follows Jesus’ words when he spoke to his disciples. Hester loved her enemies (the town), blessed the town who cursed her and shunned her, and she did good to the town that hated her. Hester, who was the adulterer, was a model for what Jesus wanted, and the Puritans seemed to be so focused on self-righteousness and perfection, they ended up being condescending and forgot about their simple doctrines, deeming them the sinners and

Show More
Related
859 Words | 4 Pages

She continues to hold onto her regrets; however, her personality flourishes. Hawthorne portrays Hester as a strong individual, who even alters the stigma surrounding her. The women of the town eventually see her positive attitude, and they begin to interpret the scarlet letter differently: “Such helpfulness was found in her, - so much power to do, and power to sympathize, - that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength” (151). Their interpretation of the letter shifts, and although Hester becomes an outcast of the community, she embraces her sin and learns to live with it.

Read More
1415 Words | 6 Pages

The new opinion of the townspeople further proved that Hester was capable of changing from an immoral woman to a respectable and strong female. After her self-inflicted temptation, Hester was able to prove herself to the people around her as well as proving to herself that she was able to change. Society around her now visualized her as a new person who was capable of finding her inner strength, and instead of labeling her as the woman who possessed the Scarlet Letter, she became a woman who was powerful and respectable. By being able to realize how her change affected the folks around her, Hester continued to leap down a positive path of accepting herself and beginning to let go of her rebellious ways, even though this is all she had known in the

Read More
1113 Words | 5 Pages

In the beginning of the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne introduces the main character Hester Prynne, a young, beautiful member of a Puritan society being punished for her sin of love, not lust. The opening chapters introduce the reader to gossips who deem her original punishment, death, too harsh and contrary to Puritan beliefs that unborn babies should be given a chance at life. Instead, Hester and her child are to be alienated and shunned. In addition she is to wear the letter ‘A’ (which stands for ‘adultery’) on her chest which will forever display her as a symbol of shame for her sin. Though a very resilient figure who soon overcomes this pain, Hester’s isolation takes a negative toll on her life.

Read More
1409 Words | 6 Pages

The Virtue of Hester Prynne In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s highly acclaimed novel, The Scarlet Letter, a Puritan town’s reaction is described after Hester Prynne raises a scandal that goes against the town’s religious views. The Puritans believe the Bible should be translated into their life and that God should be the center of it. Many of them think of Hester as a sinful woman without virtue. They treat her as an outcast and consider that she is somehow affiliated with the Devil.

Read More
941 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
896 Words | 4 Pages

The letter gave Hester a new power to sympathize with and be charitable to others. Townspeople even began to interpret the letter very differently from its original meaning. They began to believe that the symbol no longer meant adultery, however, its new significance was to mean “Able” (111). Her selfless acts of kindness attracted the attention of the community as she did needlework for the poor in her spare time. The community did not know the true reason of why Hester did this, but the act caused her true character and natural instinct to be generous to be reflected.

Read More
791 Words | 4 Pages

Punishment of Puritans for their sins occurred harshly and frequently, and these punishments ranged from fines, branding, and severe whippings to hanging and death. Many of these penalties involved public humiliation of some kind, which made it extremely difficult for townspeople to accept by their peers after they had sinned. Because the Puritans believed religion was immensely important, the community was often reluctant to allow citizens that exhibited sinful behavior to achieve redemption (Cox). However, in the case of Hester Prynne, an adulterer in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter, the townspeople eagerly made amends with her. This novel narrates the life of Hester Prynne, who committed adultery and courageously accepted the repercussions

Read More
972 Words | 4 Pages

Hester Prynne is the heroine of “The scarlet Letter”, and it is possible for us to fully sympathize with her because Through reading the text “The Scarlet Letter” we can find out Hester Prynne had a difficult life and had been suffering very much comparing to other characters because she handles her situation by keeping Dimmesdale a secret even under pressure refusing to let them take her daughter Pearl from her and not hiding from the public after her sin of adultery is revealed and she is punished. Though Hester Prynne does faced her situation better than the other characters it is still she who sufferers the most. The another reason which compel the reader to sympathize on Hester Prynne is because she had to under gone the worse consequences of her sin that she must live with her relationships and interactions with Chillingworth and Dimmesdale, and the way she deal with her sin and the results of it.

Read More
354 Words | 2 Pages

She is brave and does not deny that she sinned. She realizes that she needs to let go of the misery that the scarlet letter has brought upon her. Rather than letting it define her, Hester uses the letter. She helps out in the community. It does not define who she is.

Read More
1216 Words | 5 Pages

It says, “Who can say ‘I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?’” The Puritans have this exact attitude. They think it is possible to escape their human nature and the sin of this world and have a power over those who do sin, which goes against the teaching of the Bible. Romans 12:9 tells one to abhor what is evil, but to hold fast to what is good. This promotes the idea of hating the sin, but loving the sinner.

Read More
719 Words | 3 Pages

The 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.”

Read More
466 Words | 2 Pages

Feminism is the philosophy advocating equal political, economic, and social rights for women. The idea of feminism was not at all prevalent during the 1850s when Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter was published. In spite of this, Hawthorne wrote one of the most influential feminist novels of his time: The Scarlet Letter. This novel was hailed as an important feminist novel because of the main character: Hester Prynne.

Read More
920 Words | 4 Pages

Essentially, Puritans are expected to follow a strict set of religious and moral guidelines from which their actions and morality are derived. According to Hall’s A Reforming People, these moral expectations first introduced by the pilgrims were the driving force behind the power that the Puritan ministry had over society: “Ministers and laypeople looked first to congregations as the place where love, mutuality, and righteousness would flourish, and second to civil society. …Alongside love, mutuality, and righteousness they placed another set of values summed up in the word “equity.” Employed in a broad array of contexts, the concept of equity conveyed the colonists’ hopes for justice and fairness in their social world.”

Read More
959 Words | 4 Pages

Receiving the scarlet letter changed every aspect of Hester’s life. Especially at the start of the story, the letter symbolized the solitude and great suffering Hester faced just because of a letter placed on her bosom. The “A” also depicted how no one viewed Hester the same way as before her peccant actions. “…she saw that, owing to the peculiar effect of this convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance” (Hawthorne 109). The pejorative community Hester lived in never saw Hester as the beautiful, young woman she was, but now, as a horrible fiend.

Read More
972 Words | 4 Pages

Hawthorne effect is named after one of the most famous experiments more accurately series of experiments in the industrial history. It was conducted by Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger in the 1920s with the workers at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company in the suburbs of chicago. It concentrates on social psychological behaviour of workers in organisations. Several studies was conducted at hawthorne plant between 1924 and 1932 in order to determine workers effectiveness, thinking and their productivity.

Read More

More about Comparing Relationships In The Scarlet Letter And Hester Prynne

Related Topics

Open Document