Mistakes and the Guilty
Herman Melville said in Moby Dick, “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme…”(chptr. 104).This is a statement that can fit any story or book, even The Scarlet Letter. The three prominent themes in The Scarlet Letter show that people are unforgiving, will judge, and their opinions will always mean something. The mistakes of others can make you feel guilty. The quintessential themes of The Scarlet Letter revolve around personal guilt and the judgments of others.
We have all experienced people’s unforgiving ways, and we all know that there are those that will judge based on your mistakes. This is very prominent in The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne, the main character, was judged profoundly by her community. The townspeople of Salem, Massachusetts shunned her for one mistake: Adultery. On page 102, they are making her an outcast, “in all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it.”(Hawthorne,102). The townspeople keep their distance even after a while. She was doomed to be judged by them, and so was her daughter.
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The narrator even explains that Pearl was “her mother’s only treasure”(Hawthorne, 111). Yet, even though Pearl was her mother’s treasure, she was the townspeople’s annoyance. Pearl had done nothing, but others will judge your family’s character based on you. Pearl was teased tremendously! Governor Bellingham even said “There used to be a swarm of these small apparitions in holiday time, and we called them children of the Lord of Misrule.”(Hawthorne, 133-134). She was a child, and adults, that were viewed as mature, were bullying her. She did nothing and the worst judgment is our own. Guilt can get to