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Honesty And Forgiveness In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

375 Words2 Pages
With the right attitude, almost any wrongdoing can be fixed. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel that exemplifies this idea. Initially, the meaning of the scarlet letter is adultery, and is used to shame Hester. Through her experience of this, she stays true to herself and makes an effort to do good. The interpretation eventually shifts to “Able”. The change in meaning of the Scarlet Letter contributes to the themes of honesty and forgiveness Hester is on the scaffold in front of everyone while the narrator describes her appearance. Specifically noting that the scarlet letter is removing her from “ordinary relations with humanity” (Hawthorne 81). This is the initial drive for Hester to stay honest to herself. This
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Based on the first few chapters I read The Scarlet Letter is a novel about becoming a better person. Throughout the novel Hester tries saving her daughter and proves those who didn’t believe she could raise her child, even with all the humiliation she was receiving It’s all about those who have the opportunity of getting a second chance and choose to use it wisely. The Scarlet Letter gives a life lesson, but Hawthorne uses symbolism to describe

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859 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrates the Puritan community as judgemental. Naturally, humans attempt to hide their mistakes and imperfections from the world. The protagonists of the story battle with concealing their feelings of shame from the town. Hawthorne shows that self-isolation will inevitably lead to the destruction of one’s character, suggesting that those who admit to their sins are able to thrive. He accomplishes this by contrasting character changes between Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth, and Hester Prynne.

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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.

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599 Words | 3 Pages

In the beginning the scarlet letter represented adultery and shame, but then the A represented “able.” Hester Prynne showed people that greatness can come out of huge mistake. One bad chapter does not mean your story is over. Willingly, Hester wanted to pick herself up again and move on with her life and eventually people noticed that. They began to respect her and think of her as strong and commendable

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1322 Words | 6 Pages

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, in the tale of sin, revenge, and punishment, Hester Prynne involves herself in self-deception due to being caught up in a fraudulent interpretation of her sin and lives in an opaque concept of a better life. Hawthorne 's emotional and psychological drama revolves around Hester Prynne, who is convicted of adultery in colonial Boston by the civil and Puritan authorities. She is condemned to wear the scarlet letter "A" on her chest as a permanent sign of her sin. Consequently, Hester is complicated by her own interpretation of the letter and is embittered by the fact that she deems her punishment and the trials of her punishment will disappear along with the removal of the Scarlet Letter revealed by the characterization of her attitude in the novel. In the beginning, Hester attempts to prove that she does not care about what other people think, but later becomes paranoid and wants to escape from being the product of wrongdoing that the town perceives her as.

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1061 Words | 5 Pages

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other woman dared not tread. Shame, despair, solitude! Those have been her teachers, - stern and wild ones, - and they had made her stronger but taught her much amiss” (157). Hawthorne uses the scarlet letter to illuminate on Hester’s strength and ability. By presenting Hester in this manner Hawthorne reveals her strength and ability in the beginning of the book so Hester could stand up and be honest and courageous, which enabled her to be able to stand up to the ridicule and

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455 Words | 2 Pages

Virtually all wrongdoings are fixable with a proper attitude. Taking place in the mid 17th century, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter exemplifies this idea with the account of Hester Prynne and her perpetration of adultery. Initially, the scarlet letter represents adultery and serves as a vehicle for Hester’s shame. Throughout her experience of animadversion, she stays true to herself and makes an effort to correct her sin.

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431 Words | 2 Pages

Today's society made adultery more acceptable, but still the sin nonetheless. The Scarlet Letter focuses on adultery as a sin and ways to redeem it. As shown in the book, and Hester’s experience, sins can be redeemed by performing good deeds (helping the community) and acknowledge their wrongs.

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1141 Words | 5 Pages

In August of 2017, a father became childless. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon, Mark Heyer received a call saying his daughter had been killed by a driver speeding into a group of people protesting white supremacists. He, somehow, has found in his heart the ability to forgive this man for his awful sin. Many find his story shocking, but why? America falls severely behind in the area of forgiveness.

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752 Words | 4 Pages

In the Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne seems to aspire to get everyone to have forgiveness, in order to do so he tells us to “be true”. In my opinion, and in all honesty it has ended up hard to choose whether or not Dimmesdale and Hester have shown forgiveness, Hawthorne tells the scarlet letter in a form to where they have earned forgiveness. Even though it may look in a form of forgiveness, people may think otherwise. To begin my first statement, it may be wrongfully so for Dimmesdale to have waited so long, to tell his fellow people about his scarlet letter, but he had shown the right give, he told and finally showed who he really has become. Dimmesdale stood in front of the crowd and told the people who the real man he was and

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617 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses a variety of symbols to add a deeper understanding throughout the whole story. The symbol of a door helps the readers understand the relationship with the theme of the story, the sins and guilt of Dimmesdale and Hester, and how the Puritan society is strict and bound by punishment. Throughout the whole story, Hawthorne shows how the theme of guilt and sin is shown throughout the whole story of the the bad people of the puritan community. Dimmesdale and Hester cannot escape their own sin, but throughout the whole story, them keeping it in made them to feel guilty on the inside. For Hester it showed to the reader in chapter 5 “Her prison-door was thrown open, and

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364 Words | 2 Pages

Have you felt the need to exculpate your sins, for your guilt is eating you inside? The Scarlet Letter gives you the experience to suffer with the characters and their desire to expiate their sinful selves and at the end you would think that all of their suffering would be mollified and they would live happily ever after like every other popular story, but it had a different twist. To be candor ,when I finished reading the book I was pretty disappointed, for the characters in the story who suffered from beginning to end didn’t really liberate and feel repentance for their sins or restart their life like the human beams they were. I love twist endings, but I feel like the story could’ve of ended differently. I felt like Hester didn’t really

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1152 Words | 5 Pages

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the famous American Classic, The Scarlet Letter, in 1850. The Scarlet Letter takes place in the 1600’s in a puritan town. Hawthorne portrays the main character, Hester Prynne, as a beautiful European woman who was sent to live in a Puritan American town with her husband, known as Roger Chillingworth. Sadly for Hester, her husband never made it to American land. Thinking that her husband had died traveling across the ocean, Hester slept with the Puritan minister, Mr. Dimmesdale and became pregnant with his child, Pearl.

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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.

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1035 Words | 5 Pages

What is redemption? Redemption is the act of being saved or freed from sin. This is an important part of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” Redemption was what the characters in the book were seeking, and was the reason for many of their actions. Because of the time period and the fact the people were Puritans, sins were not tolerated nor common, so when they happened they were a huge deal.

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