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Dialectical Journal For The Scarlet Letter

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The Scarlet Letter Chapters 1-6 Response Journal Chapter one The Prison Door sets the mood of the novel. It describes how the founders of the Puritan colony knew there would be crime so they built a prison. It can be inferred that the mood is cruel because of how everything in the jail is described. “The rust on the ponderous iron-work of its oaken door looked more antique than anything else on the world” (Hawthorne, 41). The decay and oldness of the prison door makes it seem as if scary inmates are inside. There is also a rose bush in front of the prison door which symbolizes that it is the last appealing thing a prisoner will se going into prison. In the second chapter The Market Place, Hester Prynne exits the prison to face the entire town which mocks her. She is holding a child and has a scarlet letter “A” sewn on her bosom which stands for adultery. The narrator talks about her past and her beauty. …show more content…

He silences Hester in order to protect his reputation and lies about abandoning her. Dimmesdale demands Hester to reveal who her lover is but she doesn’t have enough courage to say that it is him. He too abandons Hester with their child. Chillingsworth checks in on Hester and her child as a physician in chapter four, The Interview. Hester wonders if he is seeking revenge, but he forgives her. However, the fact that he stays in town and tells Hester not to tell anyone he is her husband makes it seem as if he is going to seek revenge. Chapter five begins with Hester being released from prison and her moving to the outskirts of a town in a cottage away from everyone in order to avoid getting ridiculed everyday. However, she stays in Boston where everyone know her sins in order to feel the pain of her sins. Hester had no social life due to her sins and was condemned in the streets by ministers who began sermons on sins at the sight of

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In the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, author Thomas Foster explains concepts that have been used in writing and how those can be interpreted differently. This includes vampires and ghosts and their relationship to seemingly normal people. The concept of vampires and ghosts can be found throughout the book The Scarlet Letter in the character Roger Chillingworth. It is hard to tell what his true intent is throughout the book, thus making him seem suspicious and somewhat evil. At the beginning of the book, a mysterious man arrives to Boston during Hester’s punishment on the scaffold, to find that she has committed adultery.

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In the novel The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the protagonist is found guilty of adultery after spending time prison her only other punishment is to wear the letter A for the rest of her life and stand on a raised platform for three hours. Hester is out in the open, in front of society standing there on the platform. For that three hours many fingers were pointed and many whispers filled the air. In that time Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale delivers a sermon convincing Hester Prynne to speak the name of her lover. Dimmesdale uses rhetorical devices to help him get the name out of her such as rhetorical question, where he questions what good does keeping the name from the public get her; pathos, arousing her

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While exploring the power of love and, manipulating people 's emotions the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was written on the battle of someone who was convicted of being a sinner living in a puritan society. The Scarlet Letter was a very influential novel because it was like a change in time, because it’s so different from what we see today. The story talks about Hester, who committed adultery and instead of giving her the punishment of death, she got the leeway of public humiliation. Throughout the novel the author uses characterization, tone and symbolism to help the readers better understand. First, there were the characters that helped to connect the theme sin, crime, and punishment.

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530 Words | 3 Pages

The Scarlet Letter opens with Hester Prynne, a young woman who has committed adultery and is being punished. She is shown to be a proud, confident woman but is quickly forced to mature under the burden of public humiliation. Hester becomes an unhappy and bitter woman, her mind and body hardened by the stress of her punishment and her inability to forgive herself and move on. Throughout the story, she struggles to come to terms with what she has done and only when she finally does, can she return to her former happy, unburdened self and regain her former beauty. At the start of the novel, Hester has just received her sentencing for her crime of adultery.

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978 Words | 4 Pages

Now, in Chapter 12 after dealing with Chillingworth's remarks and hate towards Dimmesdale, he is evidently fed up with his presence. As he, Hester, and Pearl are on the scaffold and Pearl points towards Chillingsworth. He makes this remark toward Hester, “ ‘Who is that man, Hester?’...’I shiver at him! Dost thou know the man? I hate him, Hester!’

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1792 Words | 8 Pages

Author Nathaniel Hawthorne's use of mental imagery and symbolism creates a sense of immorality, death, and decay to the reader. Throughout his novels and poems, Nathaniel Hawthorne continually uses literary devices for sin. Hawthorne’s symbolism paints such a vivid picture of physically showing each person’s sin. This creativity and such a unique writing style could only be produced by a master like Hawthorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem Massachusetts to Nathaniel and Elizabeth Clark Hathorne; their only son.

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940 Words | 4 Pages

Hawthorne uses symbolism throughout the Scarlet letter to display the sin and indecency people see Hester as. The detail represents ,the deep beauty Hester has inside although most people do not see her as a beutiful women. The deep red is a representation of adultery which shows her being an oncast from society. The symbol of the letter “A” is repetitive throughout the novel and grows with Hester and overcomes this with time as people start to see her as a person again and not just a adulterer. Hester acknowledges her sin in her puritan faith but swears to secrecy on the father of Pearl.

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646 Words | 3 Pages

The Scarlet Letter tells a tale of a woman who commits adultery, a sin punishable by shame in puritan times. Throughout the novel the main characters show hypocrisy in the ways they respond to the adulterous act and the story soon revolves around these events. Most would assume that the book focuses more on the sin of adultery because that is what is at the root of the story and the rest builds upon it. Hypocrisy is the sin that The Scarlet Letter is more concerned with, after the original sin of adultery is committed the novel focuses on the hypocrisy of three of the main characters and the townspeople who judge Hester Prynne harshly. One of the most evident sources of hypocrisy is Arthur Dimmesdale and his refusal to confess of his sin.

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The Consequences of Sin 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.

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534 Words | 3 Pages

The Prison Door In this Chapter from The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne introduces the setting of the book in Boston. He uses a gloomy and depressed tone in the beginning of the chapter. He is able to convey this tone using imagery while describing the citizens, the prison, and the cemetery. However, as he continues to discuss the rose-bush, he uses parallelism to shift the tone to be brighter and joyful. To create a gloomy and depressed tone, Hawthorne uses imagery.

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829 Words | 4 Pages

We are presented with this in The Scarlet Letter when it states, “ Hester could not but ask herself, whether there had not originally been a defect of truth, courage, and loyalty on her own part, in allowing the minister to be thrown into a position where so much evil was to be forboded and nothing auspicious to be hoped” (Hawthorne 183). Hester's inability to rest peacefully is due to her ongoing feeling of disgrace for what happened between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. As punishment, she chose to return to her cottage where everything first began and live her life wearing the scarlet letter. This shows her lacking ability to forgive

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601 Words | 3 Pages

Because of this, she gets Dimmesdale involved and Chillingworth who we short after find out is Hester's husband. Everything from here begins to get even worse because of Hester and her actions. Hester never

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978 Words | 4 Pages

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne tells not only the story of Hester Prynne’s sin, but also shows wickedness behind Roger Chillingworth’s and Arthur Dimmesdale’s public appearances. In The Scarlet Letter, the two men who both have feelings for Hester clash with each other and even themselves. Throughout the novel, Chillingworth and Dimmesdale have a rather dark and twisted relationship. Although the pair start off as friends somewhat and do try to at least be respectful to one another, neither can shake off the bad vibes they are sensing from each other. This leads to Chillingworth’s outright questioning of Dimmesdale’s sins and secrets, and Dimmesdale’s growing curiosity of Chillingworth’s true identity.

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1146 Words | 5 Pages

Amanda Vicente The Scarlet Letter Reading Response AP English Language Period J 16 August 2016 Journal Entry 1: Chapters 1-2 In The Scarlet Letter, the author sets a mood from the beginning of the book. The setting is old and beat up in front of an aged wooden prison with judgmental Puritans ready to tear a women apart. The Puritans are hypocrites and the author portrays that in the story.

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936 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the novel, Hester is fraught by the Puritan society and her suffering is an effect of how evil society is. Hester continues to believe that the crime she committed was not wrong and she should not be punished for it. Her desire to protect and love Dimmesdale, turn her into a stronger person and become a heroine in the book. Although society still views her as a “naughty baggage” (Hawthorne 73) and is punished for her wrongdoing, Hester never thought to take revenge on them, yet she gives everything she has to the unfortunate and leaves herself with very little. She continues to stay positive no matter what society has for her.

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