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How Does Nathaniel Hawthorne Use Lies In The Scarlet Letter

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The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne is an age old novel. The story revolves around the actions of a woman, Hester Prynne, who committed the act of adultery and has to bare on her chest the scarlet letter “A”. The main conflict in the story is the fact that the people of the town have no way to identify the father of Hester’s illegitimate child. Other major conflicts involve Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingsworth, who also deceives the town by never announcing his marital status to Hester in order to find his wife’s secret lover, and Arthur Dimmesdale, the supposed respectable man of the cloth, who has the affair with Hester.. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, the use of secrecy and lies create …show more content…

Hester’s deceit was widespread to her the town, her husband, and her daughter. The reason she lied to the town and Roger chillingsworth was simple, safety. Not safety of her own, but safety for the man she truly loved, Arthur Dimmesdale. Throughout the entirety of the novel, Hester hides her loves identity. She does this for his protection. Arthur was a priest, grave things would have happened to him if he had admitted to being an adulterer and betraying the church. In order to assure his safety, she made sure to keep the information of the lover only to herself. “Hester's sins are the deceit of her child, as well as hiding her father’s identity” but these are the only sins. Hester did not selfishly sin. She committed the sins in order to make sure that others were protected from the harsh townspeople that may hurt them. Hester kept the identity of her love a secret, even to Pearl. Pearl could not know who her father was. With the constant bombardment and questions about it, Hester knew Pearl would not be able to handle the pressure. Hester wanted to keep Pearls mind clear so that she could not find herself in any trouble, pearl could not lie if she had not known therefore could not be guilty of anything. Out of all the sins and lie committed in this novel, Hester’s were the only one’s committed out of

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During the book Hester goes to Boston while Roger stays, then when Roger came over to New England he got kidnapped by indians and when he got rescued. He went to Boston and saw Hester pregnant with another man's child. After this Roger tries everything to get Hester to tell him who she has been with but she won't confess. ¨To confess the truth, it was my greatest apprehension¨. She can't confess because she doesn't want dimmesdale to get

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The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, focuses on the life of Hester Prynne—the unlucky soul who is caught committing adultery and forced to live a life of shame and ignominy. The scaffold is not only the start of her predicament, but it is also the end of the once seemingly perfect Reverend Dimmesdale’s own guilt. The scaffold is the setting of a scene three times throughout the novel: the beginning, middle, and end. For such a lifeless object, it is difficult to recognize its significance in the novel; however, the scaffold is used by Hawthorne to portray the changing relationship between the characters, specifically Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl.

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The people of the town often feared the letter. They would push Hester and Pearl away as if they were some type of witch like personages. Throughout the story, Hester frequently hides behind Pearl instead of facing the bullying head on. Rather than just facing the people head on she just overlooks them. To make matters worse, she doesn't stop Pearl from naively fighting for her.

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The three reasons that are given as to why Hester commits adultery are that she was “left to her own misguidance” or her own temptation, that she had already lost her husband so was more inclined to find someone else, and that she did not love her previous husband as much, which is proven when she says to her husband that “I felt no love, or feigned any” (51). The reason given is that he was a clergyman, or priest. Hence, he was speaking to Hester in order to make her confess the truth. Dimmesdale was responsible for her because it was of “spiritual matters” in a way, which was

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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a novel that focuses on sin in the Puritan society. Hawthorne revolves the theme around the four main characters Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth., and Pearl. Hester Prynne is forced to wear the scarlet letter ‘A’ after committing adultery against her husband Roger Chillingworth, with the minister Arthur Dimmesdale. As a result an odd child is born.

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Making Connections – The Arduousness of Lies Lies are often told spontaneously as the result of troubling events occurring to someone or something and are often used to manipulate segments of these events in order to attempt to alleviate the trouble or punishment given to the causer of the event. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the character Dimmesdale committed a sin and has withheld this secret for the rest of the town, while he watched the other perpetrator of the sin be punished, ridiculed, and isolated by the town of Boston. The pressure and guilt of lies is often too great of a force to withstand, judging by a past life experience, Dimmesdale reviled his secret to alleviate this dreadful feeling of pressure and guilt. At the age

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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, tells a story of a strong woman who learns from her mistakes and accepts her future in Puritan society. Meanwhile, another character experiences extreme guilt and suffers through his punishment. All through these hard times, their actions express their morbid and sorrow filled lives. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne and Dimmesdale show a morbidity of spirit in their emotions and their mannerisms. Hester Prynne, the main character, has a gloomy and unwholesome state of mind.

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The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne takes place in a Puritan community of Boston during the 17th century, during which Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne commit the grave sin of adultery. Although the young woman, Hester Prynne, was accused and discovered guilty of this sin, she refused to give up the name of her partner in sin throughout her public punishment at the scaffold. Furthermore, when the young minister, Dimmesdale, was asked to question Hester, he did not push her to reveal his name due to fear for himself. However, the concealment of his identity drove Dimmesdale to more guilt, leading him to believe it would have been better if everyone had known. Thus, Dimmesdale began a series of self-penances, including a secret confession at the scaffold during the night.

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She cannot be defined by just one label, but both. She is a mother to Pearl, who is a child born from adultery. She is a caregiver, seamstress, a lover, and a counselor, but the Puritanical society Hester lives in constantly reminds her that she is just a whore. By subscribing to this label, Hester loses her identity in a way. The effect of being an outsider due to the letter causes her to become a shell of her former self.

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Hester had a baby that was not from her husband, which of course was wrong. She lied by not staying committed to her marriage and husband. Many people say she did wrong for committing a sin. “People say “said another, that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation.” (Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is a novel that explores the theme of guilt and how it affects the three main characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth. Through the use of physiognomy, Hawthorne conveys the inner qualities of these characters by describing their physical appearances. This essay argues that Hawthorne's use of physiognomy in The Scarlet Letter reinforces the theme of guilt and its impact on the characters. One example of this is Hawthorne's description of Hester Prynne. He writes, "The young woman was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance, on a large scale...

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Hester feels guilty mainly because of the constant reminder of Pearl, the scarlet letter, and from the constant blaming of all the townspeople; which is

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Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is set in a gloomy, distressed, religious atmosphere in Boston, Massachusetts with multiple main characters known for the sins they have done. One of those being a man named Arthur Dimmesdale who is known for being a sinful and hypocritical individual. He is part of the Puritan community who are very judgmental people, so readers can more likely see the conflict that will arise. Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrates his theme that secrets that are hidden will have its consequences.

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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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