Light And Dark In The Scarlet Letter

Light And Dark

How can a lie change or affect someone? In The Scarlet Letter a sin which the protagonist is not honest about, affects different characters in different ways. Taking place in the middle of the 17th century the book is about Hester Prynne. Hester is a married woman who lives in Boston, Massachusetts during the Puritan Age. When her husband does not join her in the colonies she is lonely and commits adultery. The author Nathanial Hawthorne was from Salem, Massachusetts during the 19th century, who had Puritan ancestors. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne uses the symbols of light and dark to depict good and evil among the characters Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth.

These three change throughout the book

Arthur is a Reverend and believes what he preaches. But because of this he suffers because of his sin. Arthur is Pearl’s father, he committed adultery with a married woman. Arthur was Hester’s Reverend, as she went to his church. As he was Hester’s reverend, “Hester Prynne, I have striven with my young brother here, under whose preaching of the word you have been privileged to sit” (Hawthorne 61). He asks that Hester tell the townspeople who the father is and she refuses. Arthur spends the rest of the book losing his mind over the deal. He punishes himself by not sleeping and whipping himself in private where no one can see (Hawthorne 135.). This is clearly a dark reference, and Arthur does this to himself because he believes he has done wrong. Later in the book he preaches on many occasions about how he is a sinner. Instead of seeing him as a sinner, the people of the congregation think if he is so horrible than what are we? They then think he is an amazing Reverend. (Hawthorne 132 and 133). This can be seen as a dark and light reference. It’s dark because he makes himself out to be a horrible sinner and person. It’s light because it makes the congregation stronger believers. To put it simply Arthur is very religious and feels guilty about his sin. Arthur is described as young with striking features. (Hawthorne 62). Which could be seen as a light reference compared to him at the end. As the book goes

Roger is a man bent on revenge and lets it get to him as it gets rid of any amount of goodness in him. Roger who was Hester’s husband had sent Hester to the colonies ahead of him. He ends up living with a Native American tribe. There he learns about herbs and uses that knowledge to carry on as a physician. He soon stumbles upon his wife with a baby in Boston. He does one good thing. When he first finds out that Hester was unfaithful, he still tries to care for Hester and Pearl for the time being (Hawthorne 67). That can be seen as light since he is portrayed as evil the rest of the story. He uses the knowledge he learned from Native Americans to help calm Pearl with a soothing drink made of herbs. He soon tells Hester he is going to seek revenge, which is when we see that he will become evil as the book goes on. It takes a long time for people to start to see it but Pearl sees it first. Pearl warns her mother that Roger will get her, and refers to him as the Black man (Hawthorne 123). He is called this many times over the course of the story. A physical change isn’t seen as much in Roger, although it is said that his eyes are red at times. Roger has some good in him in the beginning of the book but we see that he turns evil and gets more bent on revenge as the book goes