A Bleak World’s Best Citizen: Rewrite #1 Mark Van Doren’s essay “Hester Prynne” expresses Van Doren’s warm admiration for Hester Prynne’s character in The Scarlet Letter. In Van Doren’s essay, the author elevates Hester Prynne, using his analysis to illustrate his belief in her morality, despite her harsh circumstances. He explores the reasons behind Hester’s strength throughout the novel, and in relation to other characters such as Dimmesdale and Chillingsworth. Van Doren effectively builds his argument by employing historical allusion, repetition, and emotional diction in his case for Hester Prynne.
As two main characters in The Scarlet Letter, which is written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester and Dimmesdale are committed adultery, therefore, the scarlet letter is patched on Hester’s chest. Accordingly, Hester and Dimmesdale have some similarities and differences. Both of the characters have the same sin, love each other, love Pearl , and indeed, they have been changed by their sin. On the other hand, the way that Hester and Dimmesdale deal with their sin is totally different, and it brings them to different ending as well. Hester and Dimmesdale love each other deeply, even though they have changed totally since their identical sin has revealed.
Hester went through public humiliation, wearing her sin for all to see and she lived till old age killed her. These two characters represent more than the sin they committed. They show us the pain of a hidden sin and the fruits of a public
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.
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.
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.
The book The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne has symbolism all throughout it. People and objects are symbolic of events and thoughts. Throughout the book, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Hester, Pearl, and Arthur Dimmesdale to signify philosophies that are evident during this time period. Hester Prynne, through the eyes of the Puritans, is an extreme sinner; she has gone against their ways, committing adultery. For this sin, she must wear a symbol of shame for the rest of her life.
Hawthorne’s use of the Formal Register in the sixth chapter, “Pearl” helps with amplifying the intensity of Hester and Pearl’s relationship in “The Scarlet Letter”. Hawthorne’s use of diction in the lines “ Mother and daughter stood together in the same circle of seclusion from human society...”, shows that Hester and Pearl are not just excluded from society but, are in a totally different sphere for the same reason; Hester’s sin. Hawthorne makes it crystal clear that there is no Pearl separate from the scarlet letter, she is the scarlet letter in human form. Despite Dimmesdale committing the same sin as Hester, he is not in the same sphere of seclusion because there is an obvious divide, him being the town’s beloved reverend and Hester being
Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale have both committed a dreadful sin with torturous consequences. They contrast one another by their different responses to the outcome. Hester courageously accepted sin and the punishments, causing her to be content in living her life. On the other hand, Dimmesdale denied his sin, which triggered an illness that eventually leads to his death. This denial of sin induces effects of guilt that can be lethal and detrimental to a person.
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.
Almost 150 years old a text, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter can be viewed as a saga of a woman who let her heart take the charge of her head and faced consequences. Set in the first half of seventeenth century in a Puritan village in Boston, Massachusetts, few years before the novel begins, Hester Prynne arrived to the ‘New World’, her arrival was soon to be followed by her husband’s arrival. He was in Europe to fulfill certain commitments. However, things took a different turn in his absence.
In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the element of change is paramount in the understanding of Hester’s personal transformation as well as her relationships with Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the Puritan community. Throughout the story, all three of Hester’s major relationships go through many shifts that affect the plot of the book. In the beginning, none of Hester’s relationships are benefiting to her. However, they slowly progress into either a loving relationship or relentless bitterness towards one another.
Hester Prynne, the Worst Sinner Three different people, all with different stories but all have something in common; they’re all sinners but the question is who is the biggest sinner? In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, many characters are portrayed as sinners like Dimmesdale, Hester, and Chillingworth. But overall the biggest sinner in the story was Hester Prynne and there are many reasons for it. Obviously the reason for the scarlet letter, she was an adulteress. Hester caused many problems with people in the town including the most holy man Dimmesdale and a man that should've never been involved, Chillingworth.
Hester's punishment was a judicial sentence; however, being forced to stand on the scaffold for three hours, and to wear the scarlet letter "A" for the rest of her life. It was socially humiliating. Hester was sent to prison for committing adultery. Hester was forced to live with the consequences by wearing the scarlet letter "A". Hester is physically and emotionally reminded of her sin, while wearing the scarlet letter "A".
Two of the main characters with many similarities as well as differences is Hester Prynne and Rvd. Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale are both characters in the book that had their identities set up in the beginning of the story, within the first 4 chapters. Hester and Dimmesdale are the parents of Pearl, who they had in an act of adultery and sin in the eyes of the townspeople. This book goes through the story of Hester and Dimmesdale's punishments, as well as repentance.
