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Hester Prynne Symbolism In The Scarlet Letter

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" the story is a profusion of symbols, hidden lies, and sin. The protagonist is Hester Prynne, a beautiful young woman who is oppressed for her infidelity and has to wear a crimson letter 'A'. This letter not only represents she is an adulterer, but is a constant reminder of her diminishing reputation and the loss of acceptance in the puritan community. Hester gets pregnant and as result a beautiful baby named Pearl is born.The illegitimate daughter also has a father. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is perceived as a man of God, but shares the same sin as Hester. Hester does not want to compromise Dimmesdale's reputation and public opinion, so she takes a seal of silence and a pact of confidentiality. The identity of the father was hidden inside the scarlet letter. Hester's motherly instincts made Pearl embrace the scarlet as a place of comfort and familiarity. The scarlet letter symbolizes adultery, and acceptance.

Hester shares the physiological stress of the sinful act of adultery in her chest. The fact that she did not reveal the partner, says she wants to save someone else's dignity and reputation than herself. The Scarlet Letter is embraced by Hester, but signifies the shame and malignant reputation that is to come. After being in prison for …show more content…

Its shows the different trails each character takes and how the one scarlet "A" can change meaning and bring a man to his death. For Hester it is a painful reminder of her adultery. For Dimmesdale it is a secret reminder of his part of his involvement in the role which he conceals, and the torment he brings upon himself for not making his sin public. Pearl embraces the Scarlet Letter and makes us think that this symbolic object although small can transport the reader to the world of the mysterious and dangerous

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Several days later, Hester meets Dimmesdale in the forest, where she removes the scarlet letter from her dress and identifies her husband and his desire for revenge. In this conversation, she convinces Dimmesdale to leave Boston in secret on a ship to Europe where they can start life anew. Renewed by this plan, the minister seems to gain new energy. Pearl, however, refuses to acknowledge either of them until Hester replaces her symbol of shame on her

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Hester has to wear a letter A on her chest for her punishment of adultery. In The Scarlet Letter, the meaning and significance of the letter A is altered as the novel goes on. Hester, the townspeople, and Pearl all have views of the letter that change. Through their views of the letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author, reveals what his view on the letter is. Hester’s view of

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How the Scarlet Letter Transforms Hester In The Scarlet Letter, when Hester is first brought out on the scaffold to by publically shamed for her ignominy, Arthur Dimmesdale pleads with her to name him as her fellow sinner so that he will not have to reveal himself when he exclaims, "Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life.” Hester refuses him and Dimmesdale goes unnamed and unpunished until the very end of the story. While Dimmesdale refuses to accept responsibility for his sin, Hester embraces the shame of the community. It is this difference which causes Dimmesdale enormous amounts of guilt and pain while Hester in able to find peace with herself and with her situation.

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Symbolism Within The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne created symbolism throughout The Scarlet Letter in order to develop the theme throughout Hester’s life. Hester is portrayed as a sheltered soul, shunned from society due to her adulterous acts. The red A and her daughter, Pearl, are symbols of Hester’s shame which she bares proudly despite society's harsh judgements. Hawthorne is able to use symbolism to develop themes, characters, and analogies in the Scarlet Letter.

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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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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne opens in a Puritan settlement, where Hester Prynne is being publicly shunned for adultery, in which she has to stand in front of a crowd for overt punishment and wear a scarlet ‘A’ on her chest. She holds her child, Pearl, who symbolizes her inability to hide her own past and her sins from the judgment of her settlement. The novel progresses in a way that further defines her mental strength and ability to endure this judgment. However, Arthur Dimmesdale, the town’s pastor, demonstrates a differing method in which he deals with his own personal judgment and fear of alienation. As The Scarlet Letter advances, his mental strength corrupts with the help of Chillingworth’s methods of trickery and Dimmesdale’s

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While her punishment changes her physical appearance, it has a far more profound effect on her character. Hester seems much older and worn down with the scarlet letter on her bosom. To Hester, the scarlet letter is a

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The Scarlet Letter was Hester’s forced punishment and is a reminder to the whole community of Hester’s sin of adultery. As Hester’s character grows in strength she realizes that “if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom” (59). Hester expresses how everyone sins and if everyone was punished the way she was, many people would have to wear a letter of their own. The punishment of wearing the “A” gave Hester the freedom of not having to hide her sins from others. However, the people with hidden sins have to protect their reputation which causes a lack of freedom.

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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.

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Hester Prynne has been given the scarlet “A” to show to all that she has committed a terrible sin, and has broken the sacred promise she made to her husband. However, instead of finding humility and sorrow from it, she takes pride in the letter. What is she trying to say? That adultery is acceptable? Hester’s punishment should be more labored and reflect upon her sins, and Pearl should be taken and monitored.

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Rough draft The U.S. at the time in the 1960s was afraid of increasing communism values and ideals across the world and within the land. A war that lasted from November first, 1955 to April 30th, 1975, that showed a spread in communism was the Vietnam War. The rise of Vietnam brought about the fear of communism back into America. It focused on the conflict between North and South Vietnam. The U.S. gave its full support to South Vietnam in the hopes of getting rid of communism.

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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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There are various examples of symbolism in The Scarlet Letter, but one of them wraps the whole story together: the meaning of the scarlet letter A. In this passage, Hester Prynne wears an embroidered letter A on her bosom as punishment. At first the A stood for “adulterer”, but the townspeople later gained respect for her and said “Such helpfulness was found in her-so much power to do and to sympathize-that many people refused to interpret the scarlet “A” by its original significance. They said it meant ‘Able’” (Hawthorne 107).

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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.

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