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How Does Hester Prynne Commit Adultery

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Everyone has sinned in their life, and it can be very hard to win over the trust you have broken. In the novel, Hester Prynne commits adultery with one of the town's ministers, Arthur Dimmesdale, and names their daughter Pearl. As a punishment, both parents receive a Scarlet letter ‘A' that they must wear at all times. Hester's true husband was held captive by Indians and when he is released, he finds the town in which Hester lives, and poses as a physician by the name of Roger Chillingworth in order to conceal his true identity. Because of how these characters deal with redeeming themselves of their sin, Chillingworth becomes the physician of Dimmesdale and causes spiritual torture to him, while Hester is not affected. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale both commit adultery. However, the two sinners use two different approaches on how to go about redeeming themselves. …show more content…

Because of this, she is treated much differently. For example, when Hester is publicly humiliated for committing her crime, she, “with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbours” (Hawthorne 37). Hester seemed to act arrogant and proud of her sin. She even says that she, “...named the infant ‘Pearl,' as being of great price- purchased with all she had- her mother's only pleasure” (Hawthorne 168). Hester seems to be very proud of her child, and presumably her sin! But as time goes on, she quickly becomes an outcast of society and very quiet. Dimmesdale, however, took a much different path in trying to redeem

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale commits a mortal sin by having an affair with a married woman, Hester Prynne. As a man of the cloth in Puritan society, Dimmesdale is expected to be the embodiment of the town’s values. He becomes captive to a self-imposed guilt that manifests from affair and his fear that he won’t meet the town’s high expectations of him. In an attempt to mitigate this guilt, Dimmesdale acts “piously” and accepts Chillingworth’s torture, causing him to suffer privately, unlike Hester who repented in the eyes of the townspeople. When Dimmesdale finally reveals his sin to the townspeople, he is able to free himself from his guilt.

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Arezu Lotfi Mr. Burd, Block A American Lit 11 November, 2015 Fight or Flight With the inner struggle of guilt, a person can either be redeemed or destroyed. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne Hester Prynne is ridiculed publicly by the Puritan community for adultery. Mr. Dimmesdale, the man Hester cheats with is a young minister in the town, and hides his sin from the community. Together the two have a daughter named Pearl, that Hester raises.

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In 17th century Boston, Hester Prynne has just been sentenced to prison after being on trial for committing an act of adultery, which caused the arrival of her daughter, Pearl. In addition to jail time, she was doomed to wear a scarlet, embroidered letter A. When Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, arrives back from his mysterious adventure, asks her to tell the name of her secret lover to repay him for the sin she committed; however, she refuses once again and Roger vows to force her lover out of hiding since she would not tell him herself. Seven years after this incident, the extremely ill Reverend Dimmesdale meets in the woods with Hester and Pearl. After a heartfelt conversation between the reverend and Hester, they develop a plan to

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Hester Prynne, the heroine of The Scarlet Letter, commits adultery against her husband, a wealthy English businessman. Roger Chillingworth is that man, only his name isn 't Roger Chillingworth. He changes his name when he arrives in Salem and finds out that his wife has had an affair with another man: the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. In order to blend in inconspicuously among the people of Salem so he can locate and punish his wife 's lover, Chillingworth changes his name.

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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.

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In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne perseveres through the struggles and adversities thrown in her path. Although, this tale of sinful passion does not hold the same truth/fate for every character. Arthur Dimmesdale is a weak and feeble individual. He is a desperate and miserable man. The minister is physically fragile.

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The Truth About the Sinner In D.H. Lawrence’s essay “On the Scarlet Letter,” Lawrence discusses how he believes that Hester Prynne, the protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, is evil and her sin of committing adultery is the cause of the novel’s problem. He states that Hester causes many problems in the novel by seducing Arthur Dimmesdale and bringing his whole life down. D.H. Lawrence achieves his purpose of showing Hester as evil and the source of the problem by using passionate hyperboles to exaggerate her sin, exuberant syntax to repeat himself, and a sarcastic tone to emphasize how evil she is.

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Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne exposes the blindness of the Puritan people through the treatment of Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale’s external characters. Hester Prynne is labeled as an adulteress and mistreated by society because of their unwillingness to see her true character. Chillingworth, the husband of Hester, leads the town to believe he is an honorable man and skillful doctor, when his true intents root from his vindictive nature Finally, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester’s lover and the father of her baby, acts as the perfect man therefore the town views him as an exemplar model, while he is truly a sinner. In the novel, Hawthorne portrays Hester as a strong, resilient woman, though the members of her community

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The book “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a complex novel that has underlying themes of sin and the responsibility for sin. The novel takes place in a Puritanical society, but two people, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, fornicate with each other, even though Hester is married to someone else. Only Hester is punished, so Dimmesdale keeps his guilt inside, not revealing it to anyone. Hester’s husband, Chillingworth, then proceeds to ruin Hester’s partner in crime, corrupting his soul and being the ultimate cause for his death. Hester, on the other hand, leads a relatively happy life after she had repented for her sin.

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This is just another example of how women and their bodies are policed under this dichotomy. Yet men are free from the being either the Madonna or the whore because that separation is exclusive to women. Throughout the story, Hester’s torment is contrasted with the man whom Hester had an affair with, Arthur Dimmesdale. Despite Arthur revealing his part in their adultery, the townspeople do not condemn him. In the conclusion, the narrator reveals how the spectators refused to believe that Arthur’s “dying words, acknowledged, nor even remotely implied, any, the slightest connection on his part, with the guilt for which Hester Prynne had so lone worn the scarlet letter” (Hawthorne 566).

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1131 Words | 5 Pages

After her decision to stay in Boston, “Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity”(78). Although this is a noble deed that Hester accomplishes, this does not prove she is not selfish. Her charity work is so that she would feel less guilty for her sin. Hester is responsible for her child and is supposed to make the best life for her which would be to flee the city to avoid Pearl being mistreated by the town, instead Hester stays because “… there trade the feet of one with whom she deemed herself connected in a union, that, unrecognized on earth, would bring them together before the bar of final judgement, and make that their marriage altar…”(75-76). Hester did not only stay in Boston to work off her debt.

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1003 Words | 5 Pages

Furthermore, Roger Chillingworth, Dimmesdale’s physician, decided to take a more violent way in solving his problems and turned to his black alchemy and torture. Through these characters’ hardships, the reader will further understand that self discipline, as a consequence of one’s guilt, is considerably more detrimental to one’s self compared to the shame others may regard. In the beginning of the novel, Hester Prynne committed a very wrongful sin of the time period, adultery. She was shunned from the community and labeled as an adulterer or one who is unfaithful to his or her spouse.

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684 Words | 3 Pages

Meanwhile, Hester learned that Chillingworth has caught on to their plan and has booked a passage on the same ship. After Dimmesdale’s speech, he sees Hester and Pearl upon the town scaffold. He impulsively mounts the scaffold with his lover and daughter and confesses his sins publicly, exposing the scarlet letter on his chest. He falls dead as Pearl kisses

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Dimmesdale, a young minister, and Hester Prynne committed adultery together. Hester was forced to bear her shame publicly whereas Dimmesdale’s sin went unknown. This did not save him from internal turmoil however. He was filled with great guilt and anxiety. The Scarlet Letter talks about these feelings.

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1662 Words | 7 Pages

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne explores recurring themes of suffering surrounding the main characters, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale both commit adultery with each other, and, as a result of this, both experience gruesome and occasionally unbearable forms of suffering. Though they undergo different forms of pain, both of their experiences are highly reliant on how the Puritan society treats them. Hester 's pain stems from the shame and estrangement she receives from the community, while Dimmesdale’s is due to the reverence with which the community regards him. Although, in spite of the fact that both Hester and Dimmesdale receive harsh penalty for their sin, by the end of the book, Hawthorne shows how their suffering is, in fact, the key to their salvation.

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