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Examples Of Sympathy In The Scarlet Letter

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Sympathy in The Scarlet Letter The Scarlet Letter is novel composed of several underlying meanings and connections to the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne, born in the early 1800s, came from a family in which strong Puritan values were ingrained in his ancestry and women were the strong family leaders. These personal connections of Hawthorne directly correlate to not only they meaning of the word “sympathy” but also to who Hawthorne persuades the reader to feel sympathetic for throughout The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne uses the term “sympathy” thirty-five times throughout The Scarlet Letter, and associates a vagueness and an ambivalence with the term. Frequently, it implies a deep, dual meaning, where both sympathy and antipathy are present, at other times it suggests the common use. Hawthorne’s contrasting and various uses of the word “sympathy” enhance the central themes of the novel such …show more content…

Chillingworth is explaining to Hester what he will do with her lover, the father of her child. Hawthorne states in The Scarlet Letter, “I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books; as I have sought gold in alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble.” Both sympathy and antipathy are present here, first Chillingworth feels and senses the presence of his enemy, although he may not necessarily feel sorry for the lover, whom we later find out is Dimmesdale, he is aware of his presence and will become a friend with a dark agenda. The second meaning, the antipathy, is the darker more devilish interpretation of Chillingworth’s desire for revenge. This involves his hatred for the lover, and his lust to see the lover tremble and suffer (Manierre 498). The word “sympathy” in this context carries a complex double meaning, which lets the reader delve into the mind of Roger

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Roger Chillingworth's Cheating Quotes

155 Words | 1 Pages

Roger Chillingworth is speaking to Hester in this quote about how much her cheating affected him. Since the author did not give very much information about Roger before he returned to Boston, it was difficult to measure exactly how he had changed since learning of the scarlet letter. Through his previous words and actions regarding Hester and especially Reverend Dimmesdale, Roger depicts himself as a man filled with hatred and focussed on revenge. Before mentioning his old self, Roger Chillingworth told Hester about Reverend Dimmesdale’s suffering since he had become somewhat of his personal physician. Roger says that the reverend sensed “an eye was looking curiously into him,” which, undoubtedly, represents the presence of Roger Chillingworth,

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Roger Chillingworth Committed The Greater Sin In The Scarlet Letter

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Roger Chillingworth committed the greater sin in the Scarlet Letter. Chillingworth was a malicious man. After the news that Hester had committed adultery, he became more and more like the “Black Man.” He lied about being a doctor and his identity. Additionally, Chillingworth was the overall cause for Dimmesdale’s death, after seven years of torturing his mind.

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Does Nathaniel Hawthorne Use Physiognomy In The Scarlet Letter

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Throughout the novel, Chillingworth’s ugly look is combined with his altruistic, as well as revenge-seeking and malicious nature. Chillingworth’s ugliness is described to be “—a deformed old figure, with a face that haunted men’s memories longer than they liked” (166), and his contradictory behaviours are revealed when the author writes: Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an

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Examples Of Pathos In The Scarlet Letter

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“The scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance. In truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it.” (120) Hawthorne’s description of the distorted scarlet letter illustrates the townspeople’s prejudiced view of

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How Did Chillingworth's Change In The Scarlet Letter

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In stories or real life, individuals are influenced by their life changing experiences whether it was huge or small. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, built and wrote the characters with positive and negative influences in the story. Throughout the story, Roger Chillingworth’s character reveals and changes because of the influences from revenge. Since he is Hester Prynne’s husband, Roger Chillingworth became the antagonist when he realizes his wife committed adultery. He decides to take revenge on the man who Hester loves.

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Syntax In The Scarlet Letter

1592 Words | 7 Pages

The syntax in The Scarlet Letter mimics the previously mentioned dark yet romantic and descriptive tone of the novel. Maintaining its seriousness and formality, Hawthorne uses additions such as imagery, personification, metaphor, and symbolism to keep the book’s underlying flowery and romantic storyline. This complex writing style required Hawthorne to utilize very long and illustrative sentence structure. His dedication to detail is seen in his use of comparison to portray both beauty and ugliness. In fact, the only time we see short and choppy sentences is character dialogue and conversation.

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Scarlet Letter Rhetorical Analysis Essay

997 Words | 4 Pages

Hawthorn proceeds to describe Chillingworth as an evil, devil-like figure and uses phrases like "the lurid fire of his heart blaze out before her eyes"(257). to convey his characterization. By using such strong imagery Hawthorne succeeds in showing the reader how emotionally and mentally superior Hester was to Chillingworth, which supports his overall claim. Hawthorne also supports the claim that Chillingworth is a devil-like figure by using the sentence, "In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a

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Arthur Dimmesdale's Moral Development In Scarlet Letter

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In 1964, Lawrence Kohlberg, a psychologist introduced the idea that humans evolved through different stages of morality. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne male characters exemplify a moral development as the story unfolds. In particular, Arthur Dimmesdale’s morality differs from the beginning of the novel to the ending of the novel. His morality undergoes continuity and change by constantly changing from selfishness, social order, and social contract. Dimmesdale undergoes the morality maintaining the social order and being considerate of others to eventually being selfish and only thinks about himself.

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Scarlet Letter Revenge Quotes

1048 Words | 5 Pages

Feeling betrayed and allowing evil thoughts to penetrate his mind, Chillingworth visited Hester while she was in prison. When Hester admitted to Chillingworth that she had wronged him, Chillingworth admitted that they both had “wronged each other,” (83) and because Chillingworth felt as though “the scale [hung] fairly balanced,” (84) he sought “no vengeance” (83) and did not plot “evil against thee” (83). However, Chillingworth was still determined to learn who Hester’s unknown lover was, and when Hester refused to reveal a name, “with a smile of dark and self-relying intelligence” (84) Chillingworth replied, “Few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery” (84). The previous line is Hawthorne’s first illustration of Chillingworth’s act of vengeance turning into not only an obsession, but

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Hardships In The Scarlet Letter

1050 Words | 5 Pages

People in life go through many hardships and challenges, but it is in the way we handle those hardships in which our true character is shown. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, the author Nathaniel Hawthorne shows his audience many ways to people interpret hardships, and some people do not take them very well. For instance the Reverend Dimmesdale. Arthur Dimmesdale 's believes his actions of self-punishment and sin created a world in which he could no longer live a life of truth and holiness. Dimmesdale was a devout Puritan, and because of how hard they were on themselves he believed that he can no longer live a life of happiness.

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Blindness In The Scarlet Letter

1270 Words | 6 Pages

He moves in with Dimmesdale, and claims he will care for him, but the public cannot see that his intention is to torture Dimmesdale. Hawthorne explains, “The intellect of Roger Chillingworth had now a sufficiently plain path before it. It was not, indeed, precisely that which he had laid out for himself to tread. Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy” (126). He deliberately chooses to drive Chillingworth into insanity.

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Roger Chillingworth Character Analysis Essay

436 Words | 2 Pages

Hawthorne’s immoral imagery depicts Chillingworth as untrustworthy. Later on, symbolism associates Chillingworth as a vicious person that seeks information for his own well-being. “In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a

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1458 Words | 6 Pages

However, he also uses these allusions to create a new side to his narrative as evident when he describes Hester’s resilience, and to create a new element in the plot as evident in his description of Dimmesdale’s penance and need for redemption. Therefore, Hawthorne demonstrates an effective use of allusions to craft a religious and detailed narrative for The Scarlet Letter by reviewing on parallels between the Bible and the novel’s main characters. There’s more to The Scarlet Letter than these allusions though, and there are many questions to answer about this book. These questions may never be answered fully, but by reading the novel itself, we might find the right places to start searching for answers and formulate our own opinions on the matter. What’s important from this novel is the realistic warning about what might happens when an individual place themselves too highly among others, a message Hawthorne writes to warn against the fervor of transcendentalism of his time.

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999 Words | 4 Pages

The Scarlet Letter, a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, functions as an evaluation of Puritan ideas, customs, and culture during the 17th century. Through this evaluation, we can get a good idea of what core values and beliefs the Puritans possessed, as well as the actions they take in cases of adversity brought about by “sinners”. Some Puritan virtues created stark divisions between groups of people, some of which led to discrimination under certain circumstances. One of the most prominent of these is the treatment and standards of men and women, a concept that surfaced during some of the major points in The Scarlet Letter. The divisions that were created by Puritan standards of men and women played a great role in shaping the plot of The Scarlet Letter, determining the fate of many of the characters.

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